<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Cut Loose the Strings of Fate by bresby</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24874477">Cut Loose the Strings of Fate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bresby/pseuds/bresby'>bresby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Found Family, I'm just going to put them through a lot first, M/M, Slow Burn, Time Travel Fix-It, Trans Martin, Warnings in individual chapters, found family is slow burn as well - they all have some issues to work past first, mcd not Jon or Martin, pretty much every character will get a happier ending than in canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:14:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,087</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24874477</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bresby/pseuds/bresby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, Martin would have thought going back in time would make saving the world easier. All he would have to do would be keep Jon from getting marked, and they could all live happily ever after. But when had the world ever conspired to make his life easier?</p><p>So now, on top of trying to keep everyone alive and save the entire world, Martin has an ever growing list of problems. The web did something to him, and he can't remember what. He can't let Elias know what's going on, and strangling him isn't an option until he's sure it won't kill everyone else. And on a purely personal level, interacting with a Jon who doesn't love him yet, and may never love him, hurts beyond belief.</p><p>Once, Martin had hated the sense that he was always following behind Jon. Now that it was all up to him, he just wished he knew the right thing to do.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>156</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>336</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Whole Lot of Worms and a Little Bit of Hope</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Martin finds himself in the past. Immediately, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that worms are significantly less scary after living through the literal apocalypse. The bad news is that he has no idea what is going on.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>See end notes for content warnings</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Martin hoped he wasn’t about to die, but the odds of that currently seemed pretty high. Every part of him from his dry throat to his pounding heart screamed at him to get out of here, but he had a job to do. He was currently walking through the basement of Carlos Vittery’s apartment building, his knees aching from where he fell climbing in the window.</p><p>This was so, so stupid. He’d seen horror movies before, and yet here he was alone at night.  In the same building where there had definitely been supernatural spiders. Trying to find out just how creepy it really was while no one knew where he was. Yep. This was definitely beyond stupid. </p><p>Then again, he supposed it was par for the course working for the Magnus Institute, or at least the Archives. He had been so excited to get the promotion after years of helping people find their way around the library. This was his opportunity to prove himself, and he would not back out just because his current surroundings were beyond creepy. Maybe he could finally convince Jon that he wasn’t a complete waste of space.</p><p>Martin steadied himself. He had to do this. He'd already screwed up so much since being transferred to the Archives, and he was so tired of Jon dismissing everything he did out of hand. All he had to do was find some concrete evidence and bring it back. </p><p>That is, if he didn’t die here.</p><p>Martin paused for a second to take in his surroundings. The dust covered basement was mostly empty with a few old boxes scattered about. No one seemed to have taken care of the place in a very long time.</p><p>After a few moments of searching, he groaned in frustration. As far as he could tell, there was nothing here. No one but him, breaking the law to try to impress his boss. It was a bit ridiculous, really. </p><p>Then, a spiderweb in a corner caught his eye. It sparkled, even before he shone his torch towards it, and it seemed to shift slightly like an optical illusion. He stepped as softly as possible towards it, but each step reverberated in the empty space. He breathed as shallowly as possible, terrified that the sounds would attract...something.</p><p>He could not tell what was so intriguing about this web, but he found he could not look away. It drew his focus alternatively in front and behind it. It was like looking at a chain-link fence, where you could focus either in front of or past the holes, and your vision blurred whenever your focus shifted. Martin repeated this several times unthinkingly. Forward and back. Zoom in and zoom out until his entire field of vision turned into a sparkling blur.</p><p>For a moment, his vision whited out. Then, in the blink of an eye, Martin remembered.</p><p>There was no great moment, no clapping thundercloud or gasp of revelation. But between one moment of blurred vision and the next of seeing, years of experience neatly slotted themselves into the spaces of Martin’s head. Just as surely as one second ago he had been a naive archival assistant, one second ago he had also been doing...something in an attempt to undo the apocalypse.</p><p>“Jon! Jon! Are you here?” Martin whispered frantically, looking around.  Was this some other domain he was trapped in? Perhaps the spiral, playing with his sense of reality? He stroked one finger along a spot of chipped paint on the cinder block wall. It felt rough and real under his fingertips. Whatever this was, he felt oddly centered. He had no clue what the hell was going on, of course, but his current experience was far from dreamlike. </p><p>Trying very hard not to panic, he noted that the backpack he’d been carrying was nowhere to be seen. He patted his pockets and noticed he had a mobile that he’d lost years ago. He pulled it out to take a look. The date on the screen glared back at him: February 27, 2016. </p><p>Martin swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. In the absence of any further evidence, he figured he should probably treat this as real. Assuming it was an illusion was a pretty dumb way to die.</p><p>So, right. He was operating under the assumption that this was genuinely the past. What did that mean?</p><p>Martin tried to remember what he had been doing back in the future. For the life of him, he had no clue. He remembered the apocalypse, he remembered traveling with Jon through the domains...and then nothing. Time travel, as far as he knew, was out of the ordinary even by apocalypse standards.</p><p>A line from a comedy special he’d watched popped into his head. “Adult life is already so goddamn weird. This might as well happen.” He was in the past. Okay. That was a lot to take in, but his entire damned life was kind of a lot. None of it had stopped him yet.</p><p>Something rustled behind him. Oh, right. If this was when he thought, he was currently in the same room as Jane Prentiss. <em>Good job Martin,</em> he thought. <em>Survived an apocalypse just to be almost eaten by worms. Again.</em></p><p>Maybe if he just stayed quiet this time, he could avoid this whole thing. She was so busy communing with her family she probably wouldn’t notice. Then again, perhaps it was better to play along until he figured out what had happened. What would changing the past even do? Was it like <em>Back to the Future, </em>where if he screwed things up too much he might just vanish?</p><p>No, it couldn't be like that, or like <em>Doctor Who</em> or anything. He was exactly where he had been. There was no other him running around this room that he had to avoid. No past Martin and future Martin. There was just one him standing here with a head far too full of memories.</p><p>Oh god. He had time traveled. <em>Martin, you don’t have time for this. Freak out later, </em>he scolded himself.</p><p>Before his brain could break any further, Jane turned and looked directly at him. Martin noted that after going through a literal apocalypse, her fetid, decaying, wormy flesh no longer held quite the same horror. Maybe the apocalypse just put a lot of things into perspective. There were worse things in this world than worms. It was still freaking gross though. She swayed slightly, as if a breeze were passing straight through the holes in her flesh and out the other side. She considered him without any sign of a spark behind her dull, glassy eyes.</p><p>Then, she spit some worms directly at him in a spray of black goo. </p><p>The oozing mess trickled down his face. It obscured his vision, and he pulled away a worm that was attempting to burrow directly up his nose, stomping on it. He frantically clawed at himself, knocking the worms to the floor and then squishing them. He breathed frantically, trying to get goo free air into his lungs.</p><p>Right. He didn’t survive the literal end of the world to be taken out by a fucking worm person.  Sometimes, running truly was the better part of valour. He took one last look at her, and then he moved as fast as his legs would allow.</p><p>His phone dropped along the way with a clatter. Again. Wasn’t that just his luck?</p><p>Once he was locked safely inside his flat, he tore his clothes off, shoved them in a rubbish bag, and viciously scrubbed every bit of worm goo from himself. At least the hot water in the shower worked. As he watched the black goo drip down the drain he pinched himself. It hurt. He supposed that was one more vote for “this is all real” then. The ache in his legs was another. Whatever had let him walk for hours on end through the domains clearly no longer applied, and his body was just not built for running.</p><p>Leaning against the cool tile and letting the water hit him, Martin desperately tried to make sense of whatever was going on. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was zone out until the hot water was gone, the sudden burst of freezing cold liquid shocking him back to his senses.</p><p>For the first time since the basement, he calmed down enough to think about Jon. Was Jon here somewhere? Well, if this was the past, Martin assumed Jon would be here, but was <em> his </em>Jon here? Maybe if he remembered, Jon would too. Martin thought briefly of how Jon had acted the first time around. If he had traveled to the past only to be confronted with the version of Jon who thought he was nothing but a nuisance...well, that thought hurt. Immensely. </p><p>He wished he had some clue of what he should do right now. He wished he had some clue how this had happened.</p><p>He clenched his hands over and over, trying to ground himself. He needed to make a plan. However, he knew it wouldn’t be safe to go outside for the next two weeks, so he had time to figure out how to approach this. Getting out of the shower, he wiped the steam off the mirror over the sink and looked at himself.</p><p>He looked exactly as he had...was it two or three years ago? Time had gotten weird there at the end. Could it really have been so little time? The face staring back at him felt infinitely younger and so much more innocent. Then again, it had been a while since he'd gotten a good look at himself. Mirrors hadn't exactly been common while wandering the wastelands of the earth. Martin touched his face, feeling disconnected from the image in the mirror doing the same.</p><p>His curly hair was a bit longer than it had been, his face a little softer and rounder, and...oh.  Ew. Martin scrunched up his face in annoyance. Right. At this point in time he had not had top surgery. That was...that was just bloody unfair. He didn't know whoever or whatever had brought him here, but as soon as he found out, he was filing a complaint. Just...fuck. As if he needed one more reason to hate the Eldritch forces that insisted on screwing with his life.</p><p>He found it a bit surprising he wasn't freaking out more, but right now there was just too much. His brain couldn't pick one thing to focus on to freak out about. This was so surreal.</p><p>Looking at himself, it was easy to ask if the past three years had been the illusion. There wasn’t a single sign he could find on himself to prove that it had ever happened - except he knew that it had. Denial wasn't helping anything. It hadn’t been a spooky vision or a dream. He was back. He knew this with a certainty which went beyond just putting the pieces together. Although honestly, that might be a problem in and of itself. He didn’t know why he felt certain. As much as he legitimately felt close to panic, he also felt a sense of calm that didn’t seem to, well, originate with him.</p><p>He should probably poke at that train of thought, but he really didn't want to. So it was just going to have to wait.</p><p>All of a sudden, his stomach gurgled and he nearly jumped out of his skin. It took him a proper minute to figure out what was wrong as the sensation of hunger felt utterly alien to him. Once he realised, he started laughing uncontrollably. </p><p>
  <em>Really, Martin? How weird does your life have to be for you to forget that normal human people need food?</em>
</p><p>God, he was starving. When had he last eaten? Was that even a question that made sense when it came to time travel?</p><p>He shoved on a bathrobe and grabbed a can of cold chicken soup from the kitchen, opening it and gulping it directly from the can. It tasted congealed and vaguely metallic, and it had bits of fat floating near the top. It was also the best thing he had ever tasted. How had he forgotten how good food was? </p><p>He swallowed the final mouthful of soup and sat down, sinking into his worn, second-hand sofa.</p><p>As though politely waiting for him to finish his meal, he heard the telltale click of a tape recorder. Looking around, he saw it sat neatly beside him on a table. At this point, he didn’t even have it in him to be surprised. He blinked, then shrugged and started talking. Maybe saying what had happened out loud would help.</p><p>
  <em> Yes, hello, I guess. You would know I had something to say, wouldn't you. You always do.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Er, statement of Martin Blackwood, 27th of February, 2016. Regarding his recent...time travel.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You weren’t around the first time I did this. I do wonder if I should even be talking to you, but I’ve always felt comfortable with you around. A lot of the others didn’t get that, felt like you were something prying. Something evil. But you always seemed, well, friendly enough, if a bit nosy. And I certainly don’t have anyone else to talk to right now about all this.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I mean, I don’t know that for sure, but Jon - well, I don’t know. Maybe when I go back to the archives it will be my Jon, but somehow that doesn’t sound right. No, I’m actually sure that whatever this is, it is just me. I'm the only one who knows.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> I guess that’s another thing I just know. Just knowing things is meant to be Jon’s deal.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So I’m back, I guess. Back in the past. Let me tell you, of all the things I would have ever guessed my future held, time travel was not one of them. Heh. Although it isn’t exactly my future, but you know what I mean. Seeing as I don’t exactly know how to time travel, I’m guessing someone sent me here.  But why? What’s the point? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I'm trying to think about it. Who could have sent me, what happened right before I came back—but every time I try it seems to slip away. Like someone or something doesn't want me to think about it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I know that whatever sent me back is most likely evil. I'm not an idiot. I'm guessing it has something to do with the web, seeing as this happened while I was staring at a literal web. I mean, not much subtlety there. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Annabelle, if you are out there, feel free to explain what the hell the web wants. Anytime now. I won't even hang up on you. Because whatever it is, I want no part of it, but I would like some answers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I wish I could talk this through with Jon, my Jon. I’ve gotten so used to him always just being there. Being on my own again feels wrong. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>No. I mean, I want him here, but when I think about it, I’m glad this happened to me and not him. I’m pretty sure if he were in my position, he’d immediately try to kill himself thinking that would somehow fix things. No, Jon, your suicidal tendencies would definitely not help. A world without you is, by any measure, a worse world. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Oh, Jon. Maybe I can spare you a world of pain. Maybe I can fix things.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> If I change things, will you still like me? Will I still be the me that you fell in love with? Does saving you mean losing you? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> No, I can’t think like that. This...this is an opportunity, and it is bigger than that. I have an amazing chance to try to make things better for him. For everyone. I mean, even if I can just keep everyone from hating each other, that would be incredible. If I can keep the world from breaking, that's got to be my priority. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I do know that I have no intention of trying to fix everything by myself. I’ve learned my lesson about what happens when you try to go it alone, and not just telling Jon what happened feels like a betrayal.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But I can’t tell him yet. Not without proof. No one is just going to believe I'm from the future. And if I start going at them with future knowledge, they are just going to think I'm a stalker or a spooky monster of some kind.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Which, hopefully, I’m not. Hopefully. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jon deserves to know, and I know how damaging secrets can be. But I just have to figure out how to both make him believe me and keep him from doing anything stupid once he’s convinced. And I have to figure out... </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Shit. Elias. Jonah. Whatever. Is he watching right now? Have I already destroyed whatever advantage I might have? I know he doesn’t actually look in on people all that often and that he underestimated me the first time around. But he just has to see the wrong thing once and everything is ruined. The more information I give out, the more likely he is to realise that something is off. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> At least I actually do know how to kill him now, and I’m pretty sure killing him won’t actually hurt us. Mostly sure. 90% sure. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>No, that’s still too big a risk. At least for now. I just have to figure out how to work around him until I can figure out how to kill him safely.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Okay, so, game plan. The apocalypse has to be my priority. I know how it happened, what had to happen to Jon to make it happen, so…I just have to make sure those things don’t happen. If I can make it so he doesn’t get even one of the marks, that means no apocalypse. Right? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So, that’s it then. I’m almost grateful I’m going to be hiding from worms for two weeks. I need time to plan, to figure out my first move. And quite frankly, dealing with Jane Prentiss feels much less frightening than seeing everyone again.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Oh, God. I can’t do this. This isn’t like lying on a CV. Or even like fooling an idiot like Peter. There is no way I can keep this hidden. I can’t..,what can I even do? Why would anybody send me back? Do they want me to fix things? Do they expect that I will make things worse?  Is worse even a possibility?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No. One thing at a time Martin. I can do this. I don’t care who sent me. I don’t care what they want. I care what I want, and I want the apocalypse never to be a thing. I want for us all to have a chance at a freaking happy ending. And I am going to make that happen for all of us....somehow. Method to be determined.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That’s it then. Martin Blackwood, time traveler. Here to save the world.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeah. To sum up, I am freaked out beyond anything right now, but, for the first time in a while...well, I think this might be hope. It's a nice feeling.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Statement Ends.</em>
</p><p>Martin clicked the tape recorder off, picking it up and curling up on his sofa. Before he knew it, he’d drifted off into a dreamless sleep, clutching the tape recorder under his chin with both hands.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Martin woke up with a start, nearly falling off the couch. His bathrobe was doing its best to choke him, and the burning sensation in his arm made it impossible to think. Glancing down, he saw and felt motion underneath the skin right in the crook of his elbow. For a second, it looked like his veins were crawling. Then, remembering the previous night, his brain ended up in a panicked loop of <em> worm, worm, oh shit it’s a worm, Prentiss, time travel, worm, gotta get the worm out, worm, oh corkscrew, right, fuck, WORM! </em></p><p>Martin furiously dashed into the kitchen and started tearing open drawers, but he couldn’t remember where he kept the corkscrew. Right, he didn’t actually have one at home, because he didn’t drink wine normally. He guessed a knife was his next best option. Cringing, he grabbed a kitchen knife. He cut into where his skin was moving and tugged the wriggling gray worm out of his flesh. At that exact moment, he heard a thumping at his door. Great.</p><p>Oh. That was a lot of blood. That was especially a lot of blood when going to hospital was not an option. Martin held a towel against his arm and pressed down desperately. It stung like hell. The thumping continued.</p><p>“Go away, Prentiss, I’m a little busy right now!” he shouted.</p><p>Feeling woozy, he stumbled forward. He thought he remembered something about holding your arm over your heart? That was supposed to slow the bleeding, he thought, but it wasn’t as if he had a lot of experience. The knocking continued, and a flood of worms sneaked under the door. Because he was an idiot who hadn't sealed it up because he didn't find her threatening anymore.</p><p>“You know, I’ve seen a lot worse than you, Prentiss. After the apocalypse, your worms really don’t scare me. You could always just go away!" </p><p>He stomped desperately while maintaining pressure on his arm.</p><p>Maybe it was the blood loss, but the worms looked different than he remembered. They were the same gray worms in a black ooze, but there were...little strings? Threads? There was some sort of connection between the worms like a network. It didn’t look solid, exactly. The threads formed connections between the worms, and a network of them went under his door. There was also a thread running from his still bleeding arm to the rest of the mess.</p><p>As he stomped on more of the worms, the threads faded. After shoving a towel across the base of the door, Martin collapsed onto the couch, breathing hard. What the hell had that been?</p><p>The next week passed just as slowly as Martin remembered. Prentiss kept knocking, but there were no more worm incursions, and he didn’t see any more of the strange threads.</p><p>He knew that he should be using this time to come up with more of a plan, but it was so hard to think while trapped in here. The first time around, time had crawled by, but this time everything passed in a haze. He would take out a piece of paper to at least try to make a to-do list, and before he knew it hours had passed without him writing a word. </p><p>There were just too many factors to predict what his actions would do. As soon as he changed anything, how could he guess what would happen next? How did time travel even work here? It didn’t seem to match up with any movie he had ever seen, not that movies were really the best frame of reference, but it wasn’t like he had anything else. </p><p>His mind spun around in circles, never coming to any clear conclusions. His arm seemed to be healing, but it was the sort of wound that really could have used some stitches. He guessed it was going to leave a pretty ugly scar. </p><p>The morning of the seventh day brought the first big departure from what he remembered. The knocking had stopped. It was too soon - so what had changed? Martin gave it a few hours just to be sure, but as he cautiously looked outside, he could see no sign of Jane Prentiss. Only a few stray worms remained.</p><p>Why had she decided to leave early? What had he done?</p><p>Martin packed a bag and grabbed his jar of worm corpses, feeling more nervous than he had all week. The thought of leaving his flat and facing the archives - facing Jon - scared him far more than worms ever could. </p><p>Still, she was gone, and he wasn't going to procrastinate on saving the world just because he was scared. Taking one final moment to collect himself, Martin set out to face his past.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Somewhat graphic injury due to worm removal<br/>Blood<br/>Brief moment of dysphoria<br/>Missing memories</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Deja Vu and Jamais Vu</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Martin returns to the archives, confronting several familiar faces and one completely unfamiliar one. </p><p>Keeping a secret is nearly impossible when you don't know someone who knows you.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW at the end</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Going back to the institute filled Martin with dread. For every possibility to fix things, he could think of a million more ways it could all go wrong.</p><p>The first thing he noticed walking in was the intense sense of being watched. He had felt it before, of course. That knowledge that nothing you did within these walls would remain secret, the feeling that you could never truly hide. But before, it had always been subtle enough that he could tell himself he was imagining it, even once he knew he wasn’t.</p><p>This time, however, it overwhelmed him. It was as if a million sticky tendrils were searching him, trying to probe deep into every corner of his mind. He pushed away at the sensation as though trying to swim through it, or perhaps he was trying to swat at the piercing threads so they went around him rather than through him. The more he pushed, the worse his head ached.</p><p>He was exhausted and he hadn't even spoken to anyone yet. </p><p>However, as he made his way down to the archives, some of the pressure lifted.  Instead, he had the sense that he was being welcomed home. Huh. He never would have thought he would miss this place. Martin kept walking towards Jon’s office as he tried to push down the mixed emotions.</p><p>He had been worried about not seeming appropriately shaken when he spoke to Jon, but right now he found that that wouldn’t be a problem. In fact, he may have been thinking more clearly last time around. </p><p>Show time, then. Martin slammed open Jon’s office door and poured out his jar of worms. Jon, who had apparently been swirling slightly in his chair while staring into space, looked up in surprise.</p><p>“Martin, what on earth?” Jon asked. As he jumped away from the worms with a look of disgust, Martin opened his mouth to speak. Then he paused once he got his first good look at him.</p><p>If Martin thought the past few years had changed him, he had nothing on Jon. In his stuffy business clothing, he looked very little like the man he’d last seen. Once the world had ended, looking professional hadn’t exactly been a top priority. But now he managed to look both like he was pretending to be 40 while also looking hopelessly young and lost.</p><p>Martin drank in the little details, comparing them to what he knew. So much of Jon had been defined by scars that it was strange to see his brown skin clear of them. He'd spent so long memorising those scars that he felt a vague sense of loss, no matter how glad he was that they were gone.</p><p>The short, scrupulously neat hair looked so wrong, too. Martin couldn’t help but think of how much Jon had liked it once he allowed himself to grow it out. Back in the safe house, during those few weeks of happiness, Jon would let Martin play with it for ages, head in his lap. Martin could still almost feel the silky sensation of the soft, graying locks. It had been the most relaxed he had ever seen Jon, who had practically purred with the attention.</p><p><em> Focus, Martin, </em> he scolded himself. <em> You need to be terrified but competent, not lovesick.  </em></p><p>Martin shook himself out of it. To his embarrassment, he realised his jaw had been hanging open. Jon was scowling at him, and if Martin had any remaining doubts, he knew. This was the Jon from the past, and Martin supposed that his Jon was gone forever. Martin had been expecting this, but dear God, that look of distain stung.</p><p>The fact that he had no intention of letting Jon treat him the same way did very little to lessen that sting.</p><p>“Martin?” Jon was starting to look more concerned. “What the hell happened?” </p><p>Martin laid out the details in his statement the best he could, minus any details about being from the future. He also left out the odd bit about the threads he saw, which he'd half convinced himself he'd imagined. The omissions came easily, even though they came with a low level of guilt. He sort of wanted to just blurt out anything, but something stopped him. He hoped that something was his own common sense, but part of him wasn't sure. If he tried to explain, he somehow didn't think the words would come out.</p><p>As he spoke, Jon listened intently.</p><p>“Now,” Jon asked with a glance at Martin's injury, “Do you need to get your arm looked at? I know you say you got the worm out, but if there is the slightest chance you missed something, this really should go to the ECDC. There are risks involved with encounters with Prentiss that I don’t believe you have fully taken into account. You may have put us all at risk by coming here first.”</p><p>Martin bristled, then snapped. “Look, Jon. I’m not an idiot, and I don’t want anyone here to get hurt. I’ve seen the same statements on her that you have. If I thought there was the slightest chance that I might be infected, I would not be here. There are reasons I thought it was worth carving my arm open, and not turning into a <em> worm person </em> was all of them. And I’ve already basically been quarantined for a week, and I would really, really rather not go through that again. So no, that will not be necessary.”</p><p>Jon seemed slightly taken aback, and continued in a gentler tone. “Of course. I didn’t mean to imply...but have you had it looked at? Just in terms of general infection or care, it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that should have been treated at home.”</p><p>“Oh,” Martin said. “Yeah, well, it isn’t like I had much choice. But it seems to be healing okay, although I’m guessing it will leave a scar,” Martin replied, fiddling with the bandage. </p><p>“Very well.”</p><p>The conversation turned to the texts from Prentiss, and as they were just about to wrap up, Jon’s phone buzzed.</p><p>“Martin, I just got another text. It says ‘Keep him. He’s less fun to scare than we thought. We think you will be, though, Archivist. We can’t wait to find out.” </p><p>Jon shuddered, then his lips quirked upwards with a hint of a smile. “It seems Ms. Prentiss thinks you are made of sterner stuff than it might first appear.”</p><p>“I feel like that’s a vote of confidence I really could have done without.”</p><p>Jon chuckled. “Quite. Still, we best take every precaution. I really don’t think you should plan on returning to your flat anytime soon.” </p><p>And so once again, Martin had a months long sleepover at the archives to look forward to. At least this time, he might be able to do something useful with that time.</p><p>* </p><p>Martin would really have liked to get started on saving the world, but instead Jon, after a few final assurances that he was fine to work, assigned him to look into the case of Mrs. Dahlia Johnson, who swore up and down that her dog was possessed by the spirit of her late husband.</p><p>Martin read the brief again. Oh, wait. He had that backwards. She thought her<em> husband </em> was possessed by the spirit of her late <em> dog </em>. It was times like this he could almost sympathise with Jon’s general attitude towards statement givers. At least doing follow up on this case wouldn’t take much brain power, and having something to do helped him think.</p><p>His thought process went a little something like this. If he tried to tell Jon everything now, he would be bluntly told that he should be on anti-psychotics. Therefore, he needed proof. And it couldn't just be proof that the supernatural was real, because Jon did already know that. If he tried to lay everything out he knew, he would just be met with denial, but maybe if he could start with one of the powers and show Jon a bunch of statements that were clearly connected, it was a pretty easy leap to see that there were other connections. Show him one example of connecting the dots before trying to show him the full shape of things. Since they were in the middle of dealing with a worm infestation, starting with corruption statements seemed as good a place as any. </p><p>This also had the side benefit that the worms might be dealt with sooner. He needed this to happen, because as soon as the worms were out of the tunnels, he could get people into the tunnels, and then everyone could start having productive, world saving, Jonah-free conversations. He didn't want to have to keep things secret any longer than strictly necessary.</p><p>After a very awkward call with Mrs. Johnson, during which Martin ended up explaining to a very distraught middle aged woman that her husband looking up fursuits online did not mean he was possessed by their dead dog, and also that she should really just talk to him about it, he looked up to see two people rushing towards him.</p><p>The first was a tall Asian man with spiky black hair and a significant lack of worm scars. Tim. God, he was alive. Martin bit his lips, trying not to reveal anything was wrong. His expression that seemed utterly alien to Martin. Tim looked at him with such an expression of open, friendly concern that Martin felt a fresh pang of grief. This was a Tim from before all the suspicion and anger, a Tim who was the friendliest person in the archives. A Tim who was at this moment hugging him tightly.</p><p>“Martin! Are you okay? We just heard the story from Jon. I can’t believe none of us thought to make sure you were actually sick.” </p><p>“It’s alright, Tim,” Martin said weakly, "I’m alive. That’s the important bit.”</p><p>Tim laughed, then thumped him on the back. “Look at our Martin, Sash. He’s growing up.” </p><p>Martin turned to look at, well...the other person in the room. She was Black, very tall, and had long braided hair pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes were full of concern underneath her round glasses. Some of his confusion must be evident, because her smile faded as he looked at her. He tried very hard not to panic.</p><p>The woman in front of him was a stranger. Martin, try as he might, could conjure no memory of her.</p><p>He knew logically that this must be Sasha. The Sasha that had been stolen from them. But try as he might, he couldn’t make his mind associate her face with the name. The not!Sasha had been short, with shoulder length hair. She would have never worn a flowing skirt like the one Sasha was wearing, saying they were impractical. Even her skin tone was different. Martin looked at the woman in front of him again, trying to make his brain place her as he desperately took in as many details as possible, and he noticed something else.</p><p>Christ, he hated the stranger. He was pretty sure that not!Sasha had been cis, not that they’d ever discussed it. Or..no, his brain didn’t want to deal with how the stranger might view gender right now. And he knew he was making a ton of assumptions right now, but he just knew.</p><p>He wondered if he had once actually had someone he could talk to about stuff, memories that were now gone forever. On the scale of her dying and losing everything, it felt selfish, but the thought that he might have once had someone he could just...talk to about trans stuff who would get it hurt. And it wasn’t as if he could do that now, because he had no clue if it was something they did talk about. He had no clue if they normally had talked about anything at all.</p><p>How was he supposed to pretend to know her?</p><p>“Sorry, Sasha. It’s just...it’s been a long few days,” Martin said with a faint smile.</p><p>“I can imagine. It sounds fascinating, but I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been. Are you really planning on living in the archives?” Sasha said. Her voice was bright and curious. It had so much life to it compared to the voice he remembered. Maybe if Martin just thought her name enough while looking at her, it would sink in. Sasha. Sasha. This was Sasha. </p><p>“Yeah. I mean, it isn’t like I want to go back to my flat, and I don’t really have a life outside of work anyway. It’ll be fine,” Martin said with a shrug.</p><p>“If you’re sure. I mean, if you think it is that big of a risk.” Sasha said, doubt evident in her voice. Had she doubted him the first time around? Martin had no way of knowing. In his memories, not!Sasha hadn’t. </p><p>She probably meant well, but his tolerance for people looking at him and thinking ‘poor dear Martin’ had evaporated a lot over the years. He held up his bandaged arm. “Look. I had to cut a worm out of my arm to prevent an evil infection that would make me…”</p><p>“A whole bunch of worms in a trenchcoat?” suggested Tim.</p><p>“Yes. That. Believe me when I say yes, the risk is there, and yes, we need to do everything to protect ourselves. This isn’t me being silly, or paranoid, or anything else. This is me being smart.” </p><p>Everyone was silent for a moment. Had he come on too strongly?</p><p>Then Tim whistled, and said, “Wow. Confidence is a good look on you, Martin. You should try it out more often.” Sasha looked halfway between impressed and amused.</p><p>“Sorry, Martin. I didn’t mean to doubt you, and I still really would like to hear about your experience if you are up for talking about it again,” Sasha said. “In the meantime, do you need anything?”</p><p>A lifetime of experience shouted at Martin to never admit he needed anything. That it was his job to provide help, not ask for it. But there was another part of him, the part that had conquered the lonely, and that part says that there was no way he was going to spend his second chance not making better friends with the people around him. The first time around, he had been friendly with Tim, but it was only much later that he understood the difference between being friendly and actually being good friends with someone. He didn’t know for sure, but he guessed it was the same with Sasha. </p><p>He wasn’t going to let it be like that this time.</p><p>“I think it’ll be okay. I mean, I already have all the stuff I need. The main thing is that I think it is going to get really lonely down here. Not that I’d expect anyone to stay in this place when they don’t have to, but if you wouldn’t mind just...hanging out sometime? If you didn’t mind, I mean. Keep my mind off things?” Martin wondered if that sounded as stupid out loud as it sounded in his head.</p><p>Tim grinned. “Hell yeah,” he said. “ Party time in the archives to chase away the worm trauma. Maybe we can even get bossman involved.” Tim had said the last part in a conspiratorial whisper.</p><p>“Don’t force him” Martin said, while hoping beyond hope that Jon would take them up on the offer.</p><p>“Hey, he’s always here anyway. Bringing the fun here might be the best way to coax him to join in,” Tim said. </p><p>“Right. Thanks,” said Martin with gratitude. That had been easier than he'd thought it would be.</p><p>There was, however, more to this than just Martin wanting to be a better friend. Over the past week, he'd been trying to figure out where things went wrong before. He couldn’t help but think that half of the archives’ problems the first time around had come because no one had honestly been friends with each other, at least not good friends. But if he could nudge everyone into becoming friends now, they might all be less likely to hate each other later when shit hit the fan.</p><p>Was that manipulative? He really hoped it wasn’t, but he still felt a bit weird about it. Like, it would be fine if he had just been trying to help people bond on a whim, but since he was using a bunch of prior knowledge, well, it didn't quite sit right with him. But he still thought it was necessary.</p><p>“Alright. We’ll let you get back to it. We need to go out and investigate that cursed teething ring case, but just let us know,” Sasha said, still looking at him curiously. Martin hoped he hadn’t been gawking at her too much.</p><p>He was rather looking forward to getting to know her.</p><p>* </p><p>Later that night, Martin stood in the middle of hundreds of boxes in the archives’ storage area. In retrospect, he should have noticed one very important flaw in his plan. Gertrude Robinson had spent years making sure the archives were as big of a bloody mess as possible. Even if he just gave each statement the briefest glance to see if it could be corruption related, it would take months to sort through them. </p><p>Martin thought that if his life were a movie, this would definitely be the point for a montage. As it was, he dreaded searching through these boxes, and he desperately tried to think of a better idea. Frustrated, he sat on the floor, leaning against the cardboard.</p><p>In the grand scheme of things, this was a small setback. He had time. Not a lot of it, but it wasn’t as if the end of the world was scheduled for tomorrow. Taking a week or a month longer to figure out how to share his knowledge with everyone should not doom the earth again. Or maybe it would? Maybe Jonah was watching him right now. Maybe he’d decide he was too big a risk to be left alive, and by this time tomorrow he’d be dead. Martin just didn’t know.</p><p>The truth was, Martin didn’t have that much faith in himself to pick the right course of action. At one point he had. When he was working for Peter, he truly thought that he had made a horrible choice that might save the world. And when he worked out that Peter was playing him, he’d felt so proud of himself for figuring it out. He’d loved seeing the smug look fall from Peter’s face when he refused to go along with his plan.</p><p>Of course, then it turned out that he’d acted exactly as Jonah had predicted, and it was all just one long con to get him thrown into the lonely. He’d just been a tool to make sure Jon got that critical last mark so Jonah could get on with his apocalypse. </p><p>So after the end, he kept looking to Jon for what to do next. And even as it became increasingly obvious that Jon didn’t know how to fix things either, he kept holding out hope that he wouldn’t have to make any key decisions. Sure, he'd tell Jon his opinions, but he never wanted to be the one to make the final call. As much as he hated the thought of being controlled or manipulated, he also hated the thought of decisions being placed on him. Now, everything was up to the choices he made right now, and he hated it.</p><p>He kept hoping for a flash of brilliance, but none came, and he was exhausted. Before he knew it, he began to doze off. In the corners of his vision, as he began to fall asleep, he saw hundreds of sparkling connections weaving the contents of the archives together. Startled, he quickly sat up straight, feeling much more awake. </p><p>He’d thought before, looking at the worms in his flat, he had imagined the strings. But he hadn’t, had he? The first time it had been after losing blood, and this time it was when he was slipping unconscious...so maybe he could only see them when he wasn’t fully with it. But they were definitely there.</p><p>Part of him thought that he should ignore it completely. He wasn’t an idiot; he knew the damn things looked like webs. He didn’t like not knowing what was going on, he didn’t like the stupid mind games, and he fucking hated the fucking web. He wanted to just ignore them and hope they would go away.</p><p>The only problem was that he had no guarantee that ignoring the threads wasn’t exactly what the web wanted. Or maybe the web just liked taunting him. Since he had no clue what they wanted, he really had no way of attempting to not do what they wanted. No matter what he did, he was going to be paranoid that it was feeding into some grand evil plot and he’d never be able to tell which choice was which. Well, if he was presented with an option like “go kick this puppy” or “go feed someone to this giant spider” he could pretty much guess, but he doubted he’d get anything so obvious. </p><p>So he just had to do what he thought was best. And maybe figuring out what those freaking connections meant would help him at least understand what was going on. The events after the apocalypse were blurry, but he remembered that he kept trying to just not know or see things, and that that approach hadn’t been working.</p><p>But how was he supposed to see them on purpose? Injuring himself over and over again certainly wasn’t sustainable, and he couldn’t exactly prolong the moment just before he fell asleep. He supposed alcohol might work, but he hated being drunk. He hated the lack of control, the feeling of his inhibitions being lowered, and the fear that he might say too much.  And besides, he needed to be able to figure out what the connections meant, not just see them. Anything that made him too out of it wouldn’t be useful. </p><p>He’d try meditation or something similar, but he knew from experience that any attempt to shut his mind up didn’t tend to work. Maybe a lack of sleep was the way to go. He knew he could see the threads for a second before falling asleep. If he stayed up longer he might be able to extend that. If he could just stay up until tomorrow night, he thought he’d be tired enough to be able to see the things long term. It wasn't a particularly pleasant thought.</p><p>Sighing, Martin went into the break room to put the kettle on. It was going to be a long night. He doubted he could get anything else useful done with the threads before forcing himself to stay awake for significantly longer, and he couldn’t bring himself to start sorting through the statements at random.</p><p>So there was nothing he could do, unless...wait. There was actually something he could do right now on the ‘Jonah might get suspicious and kill him at any moment’ front. If dying before telling anyone his knowledge was a real concern, he could make sure that the information was available somewhere. Hopefully this would never need to be read, but at least he had a contingency plan.</p><p>He never expected to be the sort of person who had to form contingency plans for his untimely demise. </p><p>He made his cup of tea, got an official statement form from a stack, and sat down to write. </p><p>
  <em> Statement of Martin Blackwood, concerning the love of his life, Jonathan Sims, and the coming apocalypse.  </em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm not exactly sure what to call this, but Martin is going to spend some time in this fic wondering if well meaning actions on his part are somehow manipulative and comparing these actions to much worse web style manipulation. Like many things in The Magnus Archives, this is based on his fears, not necessarily truth.</p><p>At the same time, Martin is also going to be fairly convinced at times that he knows what's best for everyone, and that shouldn't be taken as 100% correct either.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Lies, Damned Lies, and Whatever the Hell That Was</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“As I said earlier, I dislike factors I cannot foresee. For whatever reason, you have gone from being quite frankly appallingly easy to read to quite a blind spot."</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warnings at the bottom</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day began on the worst possible foot. Wandering the archives in a sleepy haze, Martin proceeded to walk straight into Jon, who scolded him for carelessness before informing him that Elias wanted to see him as soon as possible.</p><p>Shit. Martin felt his chest tighten, and his stomach churned. Try as he might, he could not think of a single good way out of seeing Jonah — no, Elias. Martin couldn’t risk even thinking of him as Jonah. Him knowing that name alone could get him killed. </p><p>He'd contemplated just killing the man a million times. Just storm right through the tunnels, do his best to avoid the worms, and stab the bastard's corpse. But he just couldn't be sure it would turn out like he hoped. Elias's bull about "everyone dies if he dies" was almost definitely a lie, but Martin just wasn't willing to risk everyone else on that almost. </p><p>Desperate for reassurance, Martin reminded himself that this could be nothing. Last time, if he remembered correctly, Elias had met with him about his encounter with Prentiss to offer some empty words of reassurance. It could just be that. It probably was that.</p><p>Or not. Martin walked as slowly as he could justify, trying to prepare himself for whatever might come next. Fortunately, thanks to Peter Lukas, Martin had a lot of practice keeping a blank face. Not that it would do much good if Elias chose to look closer. He knew Elias normally didn’t bother, though, so he just had to be as unsuspicious and boring as possible.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, he knocked twice on the door. “Ah yes, Martin, come in,” said a voice that oozed bland smugness. Before he could even enter the office, the sound of a clock ticking reached him. It made his skin crawl. He had spent so much time witnessing himself slowly fade away in this room, with the steady tick-tock of the clock as the soundtrack. The barest hints of that feeling, that dissociated sensation that everything would hurt if only he could remember what hurt felt like, floated through his memories. God, he hated this room. </p><p>And as for the man sitting calmly at the desk, well, the less Martin thought about him the better. He needed to stay cool right now.</p><p>“Hi, Elias. Jon said you wanted to see me?” Martin asked in what he hoped was a casual voice. As he entered, the atmosphere of the room thickened into something hot and claustrophobic, as if the very air around him was trying to squeeze its way into his brain.</p><p>“Yes. I heard you went through quite an ordeal. In truth, I had been concerned I would have to discipline you about your apparent inability to follow proper leave procedures, but I think given the circumstances we can overlook it. I’m sure you were worried, but believe it or not I do understand that unexpected events pop up. I do hope you have quite recovered from your encounter. ” Elias’s face showed nothing deeper than mild concern. Martin wanted to punch it.  </p><p>Instead, he responded, “Um, thank you. I’m….fine. Thanks for asking.” </p><p>He once again felt the oppressive probing sensation in his mind, and he desperately pushed against it. Elias’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Idly, Martin remembered just how ugly he found the furniture in the room. Knowing what he did now, he wondered just how long Elias had had some of it. Maybe it had been fashionable back in eighteen whatever. Or maybe it had always been just as pretentious as it was now.</p><p>Either way, it was immensely uncomfortable.</p><p>“Not at all. I like keeping an eye on my employees, and I do so hate whenever something comes up that I can’t foresee. I hate that none of us knew what you were going through.” </p><p>Was everything the man said an eye joke? Was there some villainous rule book? Rule 1: you must make bad puns about your secret evil powers. The less likely anyone is to understand you, the better. Martin was halfway surprised that Elias didn’t grow a mustache just so he could twirl it.</p><p>Martin thought he deserved some sort of award for keeping his face blank at this point. </p><p><em> Unctuous, </em> Martin thought. <em> That was a great word for describing Elias’s voice. Unctuous. </em></p><p>“Well, no one can see everything,” Martin said, keeping his voice light.</p><p>He hadn’t imagined Elias's reaction before. Elias practically snarled, trying to hide a growing frustration, and the sensation of probing grew stronger. Martin, on a hunch, briefly indulged in a fantasy about murdering Elias. And while the pushing continued, Elias didn't seem to react in any way. Martin knew he must be keeping him out somehow, but damned if he knew how.</p><p>“No. I suppose not. I do want you to know that I take the security of this institute very, very seriously. I will do everything in my power to make sure no <em> unwanted </em>presence takes hold where it does not belong. A threat, such as these...worms should be exterminated as quickly as possible.” </p><p>“I’m...glad to hear it." Martin swallowed against a lump in his throat.</p><p>“That being said,” Elias continued, “if you are planning to remain in the archives for a significant amount of time outside of work hours, I would remind you that you are still responsible for maintaining the same standards of behaviour and decorum during that time that I expect of all employees. “</p><p>“Of...of course. I will, I mean. I promise. Decorum, right.” Martin said. “Is that all?”</p><p>Elias paused for a moment, considering him.</p><p>“Yes, of course. We’re glad to have you back, Martin.” He smiled tightly, and Martin made a half-hearted effort to return it before leaving as quickly as he thought he could get away with.</p><p>What on earth had that been? Why couldn’t Elias get into his mind? Martin knew there were things that could block Elias’s vision, but they were all fairly significant. Smirke’s tunnels, the distortion, things like that. And while Martin still didn’t know how he was here in this time, and yes, even if he was seeing some strange things, he certainly didn’t feel particularly spooky or powerful. He just...felt like himself. </p><p>Also, did it even matter if Elias couldn’t see into his mind if all that served to do was make him suspicious? Martin knew he hadn’t heard the last of this.</p><p>Trying to calm his nerves, Martin set about making tea for everyone. It felt good to have the original staff back. Comfortable. It was just a little thing, but the routine had always made him feel useful. And he had always prided himself on knowing exactly how everyone took their tea.</p><p>The way to make Jon’s perfect cup of tea was to slightly overbrew it then add a truly obscene amount of sugar to compensate. Jon would then forget about it until it was lukewarm. Martin always died a little inside at ruining a cup of tea like that, but he aimed to please, and Jon was very particular.</p><p>Tim’s tastes were simple. No milk, no sugar. Just tea. It provided a sharp contrast with his tastes in coffee, which tended towards the most absurd caffeinated dessert he could order. And Sasha was rather traditional with her tastes, wanting just a splash of milk and 2 sugars. </p><p>However, when he offered Sasha her cup, she looked at him strangely. “Martin, I hate tea. You’ve been making sure to put the coffee pot on for me for months. Are you okay?” </p><p>He mumbled something unconvincing about forgetting while mentally hitting himself. Of course. He’d made not!Sasha’s tea. He...he had months worth of memories of making the exact same cups for everyone. Memories that were still crystal clear in his mind, that had stood as a representation of normalcy. A reminder of times before everything started to go wrong. But they weren’t real, were they? </p><p>“Sorry, Sasha. Of course...I’ll just get a pot started, okay?” Martin said.</p><p>“I mean, you don’t actually have to keep making us all drinks. It isn’t in your job description. I’m just surprised,” Sasha teased.</p><p>“No, no. It’s fine. I’ll just...go do that,” Martin replied. </p><p>To make matters worse, he kept giving Sasha more reasons to be suspicious.</p><p>When he had casually mentioned that he needed to get a new phone and asked if anyone knew anything about them, both she and Tim had first glanced at each other, then given him the most incredulous look. </p><p>Then, Tim had stood up and made a sweeping speech, saying that Martin had impugned Sasha’s honor as their resident tech expert, and he would challenge him to a duel if he ever so much hinted again that she would not have the most masterful tech suggestions. Martin had blushed and murmured more apologies. Sasha had laughed, but it hadn’t quite reached her eyes. </p><p>Martin’s memories were of a woman who had spent months trying to get a computer to work.</p><p>Later, Sasha pulled him aside privately. “Martin, are you really okay?”</p><p>“I mean, yeah? As much as I can be? It’s just been a weird week.”</p><p>“Are you sure? No, say, funny gaps in your memory? Blacking out? Or finding yourself doing things you can’t explain?” Sasha bit her lip, considering him.</p><p>“No? I’m just shaken from the worms, is all. I’ll get it together.”</p><p>Sasha nodded and said she was there if he needed anything, but he noticed her watching him throughout the day. Apparently, he had failed at convincing her.</p><p>As the day continued, his lack of sleep the night before starting getting to him more and more. Which was the plan, but it still threw him off. After the end, there had been no need to eat, sleep, or even pee, and a week hadn’t been enough for him to get used to the normal rhythms and needs of a human body again. Every time he closed his eyes for more than a second, he felt the urge to drift off increasing. He kept looking out of the corner of his eyes for the strings, but he didn’t have any luck. He felt pretty certain that this would work if he gave it enough time, though. Assuming he didn’t just pass out first. </p><p>He still wasn’t completely sure that he <em> should </em> be trying to see them again, but he had the sense that not wanting to know things or figure things out had ended...poorly before, even if he couldn’t remember exactly why.</p><p>Later that evening, when everyone but Jon had long since left, Martin finally saw them. His brain was at that point where he was so exhausted that he had gotten a second wind, a sort of numb functionality where his brain was too tired to remember that he was tired. </p><p>Fine gossamer strings seemed to form an infinite mesh of connections throughout the archive, then reached out to a network of nodes floating away into the distance. Some even seemed to reach out to him.</p><p>Glancing in a mirror in the break room, he reached out to touch the dense mesh that appeared to connect to both of his eyes, but his hand went straight through the space where it appeared. A second set of webbing branched into smaller strands, one touching each of his fingertips. Although he could not touch these either, they seemed to dance as he played with his hands. Perhaps he should have been scared, but if anything they looked pretty. It would be easy to become transfixed by the patterns that formed as he twirled his fingers, and he had to force himself to concentrate. </p><p>Both those strings connected to his eyes and fingers seemed to branch out intricately away from him in a million directions, going through the walls into other places in the archives. </p><p>A third, fainter string connected to the injury in his arm, but seemed to have nowhere near as many connections to places unknown. The fourth, which was the most faded, yet had the most strands, originated from his heart. These particular strands did not connect to a larger whole. Looking closely, they seemed to have hundreds of frayed, broken ends.</p><p>Even in the haze of tiredness, the pieces fell into place easily. Could what he was seeing really be that simple? He rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep to make better sense of this, but he couldn’t make sense of this if he allowed himself to sleep. At least he could think of a decent way to test his theory. </p><p>He went to knock on Jon’s office door. Hopefully, he could both confirm his theory and convince Jon to go get some sleep. Jon called out for him to enter, and he did so. Jon appeared almost as tired as Martin felt, and his desk looked like someone had dumped a waste paper bin on it. </p><p>“Yes, Martin. What is it?” Jon spoke with an undertone of annoyance.</p><p>“I just saw the light on in here and worried, that’s all. It’s late. Why are you still here?” Martin asked.</p><p>As he spoke, Martin looked at Jon. Sure enough, he saw strands connecting both to his eyes and his fingers, and these strands, through a series of nodes, connected to the corresponding strands on Martin. Eyes to eyes. Fingers to fingers. Jon’s eyes, in particular, practically disappeared beneath an incredibly thick layer of strings.</p><p>“I was attempting to put together some more information on Ms. Prentiss. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that after your experience.” Jon gestured to some paperwork on his desk. At least one of the papers had a strand that connected to the one coming from Martin’s injured arm. Okay, good. He was right. Strands connected things touched by the same power. That actually made his life a bit easier. </p><p>“I do, I do appreciate it, but there is no point working yourself to death over it,” Martin said. </p><p>“Judging by your performance today, I rather don’t think I’m the one who needs to be told to sleep like a child,” Jon said coldly. </p><p>“Jon, please. If you are going to figure this out, you need to take care of yourself,” Martin replied, refusing to rise to the bait. </p><p>“I’ll remind you that I am, in fact, an adult capable of making my own decisions.” </p><p>"I know. I'm not trying to ..." Martin trailed off. </p><p>“I promise I’ll leave soon. Now, if that is quite everything, I need to pack up for the night."</p><p>“Night, Jon,” Martin said, leaving the door open behind him.</p><p>"Goodnight, Martin," Jon replied, his voice a bit softer.</p><p>As irritated as Jon was, he at least listened, because he left not long after.</p><p>Martin decided that as important as plan “figure out how to save the world” was on a global scale, his second priority was to accelerate Jon’s character development into not being a complete arse as soon as possible. Hearing Jon talk to him like this again almost made him miss the apocalypse.</p><p>No, that wasn't completely fair. He knew how scared the institute made Jon, and he knew just how much Jon was still trying to prove himself. He wanted to find the right way to reach out to him. He would have thought he'd just know how to do that. He'd spent so much time with him, he knew so much about what made him laugh, what he cared about...but he didn't know how to get through to him right now.</p><p>That didn’t mean he was going to just accept Jon’s treatment of him. </p><p>The rest of the night passed in a blur. When he returned to the archives storage room, this time he saw a hugely complex grey network of webs that overlaid the piles of haphazardly filled boxes and filing cabinets. He tried to start tracing them, but they were still a bit difficult to see. Out of curiosity, he turned off the light to see what they would look like.</p><p>It was...well, it was beautiful. The grey of the webs turned into a sparkling silver, and they filled the room to the point that he was reminded of a night sky illuminated by starlight. From this perspective, the webs felt more real than the bits of paper and cardboard they connected. There was a poetry in the connections, the surreal threads linking outwardly mundane bits of paper into a larger unseen whole. </p><p>Despite the darkness of the room, the webs provided enough light for him to see perfectly.</p><p>“Huh. Cool,” he said to the empty room, then got to work.</p><p>Quickly glancing at a file that seemed to have no connections and determining that it was filled with nonsense, Martin determined that the false statements had no threads flowing from them. He breathed a sigh of relief. That would significantly cut down on the amount of time he would have to spend doing this. </p><p>Starting from the thread on his arm, Martin started by following the connection to a half eaten cardboard box that was for some reason placed underneath a short filing cabinet. He knew why Gertrude left the place like this, but why? Just, why? The archives were dangerous enough. Why would you want to add ‘high likelihood of falling file cabinets’ to the risks? Lifting the rather heavy cabinet out of the way, he dug through the box until he got to the correct statement.</p><p>It felt...well, it felt like the corruption. Like a faint hint of nausea coupled with the phantom sensation of an ant crawling up your spine. Taking a look at it, he found himself starting to read aloud:</p><p>
  <em> <b>Statement of Bernard Carney, regarding an under-reported malaria epidemic in India…</b> </em>
</p><p>Once he started, he ended up reading the entire statement, which involved a one Dr. Amherst. That...was going to be a problem. He tapped at his face, which had gone nearly numb from exhaustion, to try to get himself to focus. He didn’t have time to read every statement if he wanted to get this organised quickly. </p><p>Therefore, he decided simply following the strands without looking too closely at what he pulled together was probably his best bet. He dug through boxes quickly, following the sparkling strings.  Then, he ended up just sticking them all in an empty box.</p><p>He did occasionally glance at the statements, just for a second. In an incredible stroke of good luck, one of the ones he glanced at was the statement of Prentiss herself. That one, he carefully set aside. </p><p>Each and every time he quickly checked a statement, trying hard to not actually read enough that he felt the need to read the whole thing, the statement had some connection to insects or disease. </p><p>This whole thing was...significantly creepy, he had to admit, but nothing exactly <em> felt </em> wrong about what he was doing. It didn’t feel like he was calling on some eldritch power to help him. He didn’t even feel the emotionally exhausting sense of persistent dread like he did when he just read that statement. The strings were just...there.</p><p>Oh. Thinking about it, his immediate reaction of “ooh, pretty” to the strings seemed a tad ominous in hindsight. In the back of his mind, he heard Jon discussing the beauty he found in the apocalypse, a beauty Martin had vehemently denied seeing.</p><p>Truth be told, occasionally when he had told Jon that, he had been lying. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see it, it was that he couldn’t let himself. He couldn’t bring himself to admit it because of what that would say about him. He couldn't because all of the poor people around him deserved better.</p><p>But Martin felt that it was incredibly important that he wasn’t in complete denial here. This wasn’t denial, just pragmatism. Using this new power could go very wrong very quickly, but...</p><p>He just couldn’t beat the web at their own game if he didn’t know what was going on. </p><p>At the end there, he’d kept refusing to accept the reality of their situation, kept trying to avoid seeing the fear and the pain, kept refusing to let Jon see into his head, and it had led to….</p><p>What had it led to? He...he couldn’t remember. Things had gotten bad. Worse, even, and he didn’t know how that was possible. Why couldn’t he remember what had happened at the end? Had Jon even been with him?</p><p>He felt like crying, and he could not for the life of him remember why.  </p><p>No, he needed to know what was going on. He needed to stop both Jonah’s apocalypse and whatever the fuck the web was planning, and for that he needed help. And the only way Jon would be able to help would be if Martin could get him to understand the bigger picture in a provable way without driving him deeper into denial or paranoia.</p><p>Understanding the connections between a single entity wasn’t a lot, but it was a hell of a lot more than Jon knew now. It was, at least, a place to start. Martin kept working, his ability to focus on his actions slipping further and further away as he traced the lines between statements. Just a little longer. He just had to keep going a little longer. The rest of the night blurred into a mess of strings, papers, and movement.</p><p>He woke to Jon’s voice yelling, “Martin. Good grief, what is this mess? What the hell were you doing in here last night?”</p><p>Martin looked up in confusion. He must have fallen asleep. “What time is it?” he asked, his words slightly slurred. </p><p>“It is six in the morning. I find I need to repeat my question. What on earth did you do? Was there a stray tornado in the archives?.” </p><p>Martin's brain didn't want to function. As he looked around, he first noticed that all of the strands of web were gone. Then, just as quickly, he saw the reason for Jon’s anger. The archives storage room was a right mess. Papers thrown everywhere, drawers to filing cabinets left open, boxes upturned...it wasn’t a good look. He felt a moment of gratefulness that Jon couldn’t actually fire him. Not that Jon knew that.</p><p>He hated misleading Jon, but right now it was time to lean into his meagre acting skills. He hated lying, and he hated this feeling that he needed to put on a show. If anyone had told him that time travel would involve this level of needing to act, he would have categorically refused to ever consider it. Not that he had had any choice in the matter. Probably.</p><p>“Okay, Jon. I know this looks bad, but I swear there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Just hear me out. So...I was thinking. I know you mentioned that you thought Jane Prentiss had a statement somewhere in here, and I decided I might as well look for it since I was stuck here all night. But then, as I was looking, I kept noticing other statements with bugs or different kinds of infections, and they all just sort of seemed to <em> feel </em> connected, and then I noticed that some names kept popping up, and I wanted to just get all of the connected ones together, so I just kept looking. Look! Everything in this box is something I <em> think </em>might be related.” Martin held up the box.</p><p>Jon took a moment to process all of that, his mouth slightly open. It took him a few attempts before he managed to speak. Martin's cheeks burned with embarrassment. </p><p>He'd rather be caught with no trousers again.</p><p>“So you are saying...everything in that box is related to Prentiss.” Martin felt pretty sure that if he looked up dubious in the dictionary, he’d see a picture of Jon’s current facial expression.</p><p>“Yeah. Or, if not her exactly, a similar theme? Please, just have a look before you keep yelling at me.” Martin could see that Jon was curious despite himself. </p><p>“Very well. I...if you are correct, this will have been an incredible amount of research done in a very short time. I am expecting you to clean up this mess, but I...will reserve judgement until I take a look at what you’ve collected. Then, I will decide how to deal with this incident. You said one of the statements you found was from Prentiss herself?”</p><p>“Yeah. I have that one here,” Martin said, pulling out the correct statement and handing it to Jon. “Yesterday, I also managed to track down the identity of a man who fumigated her flat once. I can try contacting him today to see if he knows anything else.” </p><p>That was another lie. Martin had freaked out over not being able to find the exterminator’s statement at some point last night. Then, he had remembered that the man only gave that statement after the infestation had been dealt with in the old timeline. This was followed by a solid ten minutes of considering how sleep deprivation and contemplating time travel were a bad mix.</p><p>However, as Martin still remembered the details, he should be able to contact him without a problem. </p><p>Jon looked at it, then nodded. “Very well, Martin. I think I want to take a look at this right away. I am still incredibly doubtful that this will come to anything, but I do recognise the amount of work you must have done. I’d appreciate some help getting the rest of this into my office.” </p><p>Jon ended up locking himself in his office. Although Martin tried to get some work done, he just ended feeling utterly wrung out. Both Tim and Sasha were out trying to scrounge up some information on a case. Martin wished he could tell them that there was no way they were going to manage to track down an individual who was clearly Simon Fairchild, but he couldn’t think of a reasonable way to do it. After his third attempt at reading some notes through blurred vision failed, he gave up, choosing instead to collapse on the cot and fall into unconsciousness. </p><p>Martin woke up feeling warmer than he would have expected. A blanket had been placed over him as he slept. Smiling slightly while snuggling into it, he opened his eyes, seeing Jon, sound asleep at the table in the room. For a brief moment he felt guilty for taking away Jon’s bed. He then got up and wrapped the blanket gently around Jon’s shoulders. He dearly wanted to kiss his forehead or embrace him, but he had no right to that. Not with this Jon. Not yet. No matter how adorable he looked in his sleep.</p><p>For now, though, he got to work trying to make the archives’ storage at least look presentable before anyone else asked what had happened. </p><p>Before he left in the evening, Jon had gone to Martin and said, “Thank you. Really. I haven’t had time to look through any of the material beyond the statement from Ms. Prentiss herself, but that certainly checked out. I...appreciate it, and I apologise for yelling this morning.” Jon couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but he did sound sincere.</p><p>“No problem. I’m just happy to help,” Martin said, feeling a warm hint of hope. </p><p>He decided to give himself the evening off. It was a Friday, and he didn’t think he could manage to accomplish anything else if he tried. Instead, he felt the urge to write for the first time in a long while. </p><p>However, before he could even properly debate the merits of the word threads versus the word strings, he heard the loud, tell-tale click of a tape recorder. He glared at it.</p><p>“Seriously! What now? No, really. What now? It’s been a very long couple of days, and I doubt you’re here because you want to hear my poetry."</p><p>He was right to be alarmed. A moment later, Elias walked in, smiling slightly and saying, “Good evening, Martin. I had hoped I would find you here.”</p><p>“Good...good evening, Elias. Can I help you?” Martin asked. In his head, the names Gertrude Robinson and Jurgen Leitner were flashing like neon signs. Being alone with Elias never amounted to anything good. </p><p>“Come now, Martin. You must have some idea what this is about?”</p><p>“I’m...sorry I messed up the storage room? I cleaned it up?” Martin tried, standing and trying to edge his way closer to the door. Elias immediately took a small step in the small direction.</p><p>“Martin, really? Is that the best you can do?” </p><p>“I’m...very sorry?” </p><p>Elias regarded him with undisguised disdain.</p><p>“As I said earlier, I dislike factors I cannot foresee. For whatever reason, you have gone from being quite frankly appallingly easy to read to quite a blind spot. And much as I loathe letting myself get overly involved, I cannot let such a conspicuous blind spot continue, as I’m sure you understand. It has been...well, I haven’t had anyone I was so completely unable to read in decades. At least not when I was directly in front of them.”</p><p>“Decades?” Martin asked. He tried to sound politely confused, but he could tell it wasn’t working. Shit.</p><p>Elias calmly moved to take something out of an inner pocket of his suit’s jacket. It was...oh fuck. That was a gun. That was an actual gun. That was a fucking gun, and he was about to be shot, and the world was going to end just like before, only this time he wouldn’t be there to help Jon. Martin clenched his fists, trying not to panic.</p><p>He had to do something now.</p><p><em> Come on, Martin, think, </em> he screamed internally. <em> You are going to be dead in seconds. Think, dammit.  </em></p><p>“But before I kill you, I don’t suppose you would care to tell me who got to you. Worms or no, it certainly wasn’t the corruption. The hive mind has never been one for subtlety. I truly have no idea why you would so suddenly work to rampage through my archives just to give information to my archivist. I have numerous enemies, yet your motivations don’t seem to fit neatly with any of them.”</p><p>Martin didn’t respond as his mind raced. No amount of playing into his “poor, dear Martin” persona was going to cut it at this point. He needed to try something else. Elias waited, clicking the safety on the gun but making no move to shoot.</p><p>A line from Elias’s ‘one monologue to doom them all’ came back to him. Oh, that...that was a terrible idea. A truly terrible idea. Martin could not express enough how much this was a horrific, terrible, doomed to bite him in the arse at the soonest possible opportunity idea. </p><p>But there was going to be no convincing Elias he was normal. Normal people wouldn't be able to keep an avatar of the eye out of their head. And if he couldn’t convince Elias that he was normal, he had to convince Elias that he was, well, here to help.</p><p>Martin picked a spot on the opposite wall and let his eyes go unfocused and his arms fall slack against his sides. In the creepiest monotone he could muster up, he said, “Not all...infestations are alike, <em> Jonah </em>. While the mother rarely interferes...directly, she does not give gifts lightly, and she protects her investments. You should appreciate that such protection is being given without demands in return.” </p><p>Jonah’s hand stopped moving, and his face paled dramatically. “I...see,” he said, putting the gun back inside his jacket. </p><p>“Do you,” Martin said in the same flat voice that he hoped sounded otherworldly, feeling utter disbelief that this ruse might actually work. Then again, how long had it been since Jonah had to rely on his brain rather than his powers to tell if someone was lying to him? </p><p>“If I might...ask a question…” Jonah started. Martin paused, violently shook himself, then looked at him in confusion.</p><p>“Elias? Did you ask something? I’m sorry...what are you doing here so late?” There. Back to appearing unassuming, which was really much more comfortable.</p><p>Elias just smiled, although his hand trembled slightly. “Oh, just checking in on you before leaving for the night. Nothing to worry about, Martin. I’m sure you will be fully capable of keeping an eye on the place in my absence.” </p><p>“Er, right. Okay, then. Goodnight, Elias,” Martin replied, trying to inject as much confusion into his voice as possible.</p><p>He managed to wait long enough until he was certain Elias had properly left before he started hyperventilating. Holy shit that had been close. </p><p><em> And seriously, Martin, what the fuck was that? Where did that come from? </em>he thought, gesturing with his hands at his own internal monologue. The one thing he knew for certain was it hadn’t been compelled. He had not actually been taken over by anything in that moment. No, that piece of improv genius had come straight from his idiot brain, and he had no clue how he was going to maintain this.</p><p>Okay, so he needed to look at the positives. He didn’t die. That was good. Not dying— always a big plus. Only now Jonah thought that Martin had become a sleeper agent of the web and was here to, what, ensure that his ritual worked? And this was while Martin was desperately hoping he wasn’t really an agent of the web, which was seeming more and more unlikely. Or, he had to hope that, if he was being manipulated and given powers by the web, that he’d be able to wrestle back control somehow. </p><p>There were just too many layers. He wasn’t smart enough to pull this off, and the ruse would only work until it became clear that he was actively trying to prevent Jon from being marked by the powers. In the best case scenario, all he had done was buy himself some time. </p><p>Sighing, Martin decided that nothing more could be done tonight. He turned to the tape recorder,</p><p>“Er, thanks for the heads up. I wish you could have told me what was coming, but I guess you can’t really talk, can you? I think I’m just going to go back to writing for a bit. I doubt that would be that interesting to you, so, goodnight? I guess?” Martin said, clicking the tape recorder off.</p><p>It clicked back on. Well, if that was how it was going to be, Martin found he rather didn’t mind. Settling in, he asked it,  “Oh, okay. I guess you do want to hear some poetry. What do you think, ‘threads of possibility’ or ‘strings of possibility’? No, strings, you are definitely right. Let’s go with strings.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sleep deprivation<br/>Threat of gun violence<br/>Language</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Successes and Self Doubt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He was making things better, wasn’t he?  </p><p>He knew why he had chosen to go about things this way. But he was still having everyone bond over a mystery he already knew the answer to. He was apparently doing a good enough job organising the archive and feeding Jon that Jonah was convinced he was here to help. He was still trying to nudge everyone into getting along...</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW at the end</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Martin slept uneasily that night, halfway convinced that Elias would change his mind at any moment and decide that he was too big of a risk to be left alive. His nerves made everything irritating: the fluorescent lights he refused to turn off, the small cot that he could barely fit on, his skin itching under the bandage on his arm, the fact that he'd slept entirely clothed down to his shoes. Absolutely no part of him from his mind to his body could get comfortable.</p><p>So, when Jon decided to show up at exactly the same time he normally would on a weekday, Martin gave up on trying to rest. He might as well do something useful.</p><p>“Hey, Jon. Do you need help with anything? I mean...I am here anyway.”</p><p>“Oh. No, it is your day off, and you’d just be -”</p><p>Martin could hear from Jon’s tone what he was about to say, and he cut him off. “Don’t say I’d be in the way. I put this together, remember?”</p><p>Jon opened his mouth to protest, then decided against it. He nodded. “Alright, then. I suppose I could use a better explanation of exactly what you hoped to accomplish here. I looked through some of these briefly, and while I saw the mentions of disease or insects, I’m not sure why you thought that would be useful to our current investigation.”</p><p>“Well...they’re connected?” Martin said. He thought it was obvious, but maybe that was just his future knowledge.</p><p>“So you said. But please don’t tell me you are going to try to tell me you think all of these are...manifestations of the same infestation or something. Some seem to be purely about disease, some purely about insects. Some date back a century and a half. I can see the value in looking into how various paranormal appearing diseases were handled, but drawing connections beyond that seems ludicrous,” Jon said. “And, you didn’t exactly put these statements in an easy to follow order.”</p><p>Martin rolled his eyes. “So sorry I didn’t have time to sort everything before you yelled at me and had me hand everything over. You didn’t exactly give me any additional time. But I’m more than happy to help you sort through it now. Er, how exactly would you like them sorted?” </p><p>“I suppose chronological would be the best place to start. Unless you have another suggestion.”</p><p>“Erm, maybe see if any of them record digitally first? Just, you know, there is something about the ones that don’t…” Martin trailed off. He knew all of these would require the tape recorder, but maybe demonstrating that to Jon would be useful.</p><p>“What do you mean? While it is frustrating that our good technology seems to fail so often and we need to use the recorder, that doesn’t mean there is any deeper meaning there.” Jon said. Martin gave him a look.</p><p>“At least consider it?” Martin needed Jon to get over his ‘if I just pretend I don’t believe in the supernatural it can’t hurt me’ phase now. Before it actually hurt him.</p><p>“Fine. I will give it all the consideration it deserves.” </p><p>“Or, maybe start noting down key names? I was skimming, but I think I saw some repeats,” Martin suggested.</p><p>Jon nodded. “That seems...sensible. Perhaps just skim through for any names or places and record them on a separate paper. We can go back later and look for any overlap.”</p><p>They soon fell into a rather peaceful routine sorting the statements. The two of them sat together, not talking much beyond asking for one piece of paper or another to be passed back and forth. Occasionally this would lead to their fingers brushing together, and Martin felt a little jolt of joy every time. He kept sneaking glances at Jon, enjoying the little way his face wrinkled when he concentrated deeply. The man might deny that he was adorable, but he had never seen himself chewing on a pen while reading. </p><p>Perhaps Martin shouldn’t be so giddy about brushing fingers with someone he had actually been in a relationship with, but simply seeing Jon alive and whole did all sorts of things to his heart. Maybe this time, they could do things right. They’d never even really been on a proper date before the apocalypse. The possibility made Martin feel like a lovesick teenager.</p><p>Sometime around noon there was a sudden knock on the door. Tim and Sasha barrelled in without bothering to wait for a response. </p><p>“Martin!” Tim’s voice rang out, “and boss! What are both of you doing working? It’s Saturday, in case you didn’t notice.”</p><p>Jon was unimpressed. “Some people take their work seriously, Tim.”</p><p>“And some people take their mental health seriously. All work and no play, etcetera, etcetera. And if Martin refuses to leave the archives for some fun, well, we just have to bring the fun to him.”</p><p>Martin had honestly forgotten he’d asked the two of them to hang out. He said, “Thanks. Honestly, um, just let me finish up here and…”</p><p>“Nope,” Sasha said. “We didn’t come in here on a Saturday to watch you work. I’m sure whatever you are doing, Jon is perfectly capable of doing it without you for a few hours.”</p><p>“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon said. “I usually work better alone anyway.” Martin looked at him. He knew damned well that Jon tended to claim he didn’t <em> want </em> to socialise when he was really thinking about how he was <em> bad </em> at it. </p><p>“Or, you know, if you wanted to join us…” Martin suggested, but Jon shook his head.</p><p>“That’s quite alright. I doubt I’d enjoy whatever Tim’s idea of a fun weekend is anyway. But, it is your time off, and as long as the archives don’t end up further destroyed I suppose I really can’t protest you leaving.” Jon looked a bit disappointed at the thought, but maybe that was just Martin reading into things.</p><p>“Bullshit,” Tim said. “Time off is good for you too. You're going to run yourself into the ground if you keep going like this.” Jon tensed.</p><p>“I really don’t...Tim, why do you have a giant bag of gummy worms?” Jon asked, changing the subject. As he did so, Martin noticed it as well. That...that was not a sensible amount of gummy worms. That bag probably held enough candy to give an entire classroom of primary school kids a sugar high.</p><p>“Well, the original plan had been to hide them in a series of increasingly comedic locations around the archives. But, seeing as Sasha and I just had to squish several real ones coming in this morning, I’ve sadly decided that prank would be going a bit too far. So they are just for eating.” </p><p>Martin thought that Tim better not change his mind about that. If he started finding gummy worms in his tea or his shoes, God help the person responsible.</p><p>Jon looked startled. “And you didn’t think to lead with the worms? How many are there? Were you hurt?”</p><p>Sasha sighed. “Jon, relax. It was just a couple, and I’m pretty sure we got them all. And, they spared us from another one of Tim’s hilarious pranks, so I’m honestly considering writing them a thank you card.”</p><p>“Yes, well. I’ll still speak to Elias about it. Just so he can warn the rest of the staff to keep a lookout.”</p><p>Martin’s entire body froze at the thought of Jon anywhere near Elias, and he dug his nails into his palms in an attempt not to let his emotions show. But he couldn’t say anything, could he? From Jon’s point of view, that was a perfectly natural, responsible idea. </p><p>Thankfully, Jon didn't notice his reaction.</p><p>“Martin, is everything okay?” Sasha asked. Shit. Apparently she had, though. Was she normally this observant about everyone? Or was she just watching him because he was acting weird around her? He had no idea. </p><p>“Um, yeah. Sorry. Just a bit distracted. Shall we?”</p><p>“Just try not to be too loud. This is still a place of business, day off or not,” Jon said.</p><p>Martin considered him for a moment. He didn’t want to leave Jon out, but he also didn't want to push too hard.</p><p>“Jon, um, if you wanted you could come work in the break room while we are hanging out. We wouldn’t bother you, but just, you know, if you wanted to be around people...” Martin said. His words sounded stupid once he said them out loud.</p><p>Jon paused, then shook his head. “I fail to see how that would in any way be conducive to getting work done."</p><p>“Think about it? I just want you to know that you're welcome, ” Martin said gently, before leaving with the others. Jon paused, then nodded slightly.</p><p>As he left the room Martin said, “Thanks, guys. You really didn’t have to do this. I’m sure that this can’t be as exciting as whatever you had planned for this weekend.” </p><p>“Martin, it’s fine. Anyway, what’s your pleasure? Card games? Epic archives hide-and-go-seek match?” Tim lowered his voice to a teasing whisper, “Archives orgy?”</p><p>“TIM!” both Martin and Sasha said in unison. </p><p>Tim just laughed, then became a touch more serious. “But seriously, Martin. I don’t know what Jon’s playing at, having you work when you are stuck here. You look like you are about to fall apart, and you’ve been working nonstop since you got back.”</p><p>“He didn’t make me do anything,” Martin replied, a bit tartly. “It was my choice.”</p><p>“Still, if you have to run yourself down like this to try to impress someone, maybe they weren’t worth impressing in the first place,” Tim said. "I mean, I've known Jon for a long time, liked him even, but you don't deserve how he treats you."</p><p>“Same. Jon can be a great guy, but he hasn't been great to you. It isn't fair of him to take everything out on you, Martin,” Sasha added. Martin thought they sounded honestly concerned for his welfare. He hated it.</p><p>“This case directly involves me, and I wanted to be helpful.”</p><p>“If you say so,” Tim muttered.</p><p>“Tim, I’m a grown man. Trust me to know who I want,” Martin said. </p><p>Sasha giggled, and both of Tim’s eyebrows rose sky high. </p><p>Oh, God. Martin thought over his choice of words. He’d just said that, hadn’t he? </p><p>Why couldn’t a gaping hole open up in the floor and swallow him when he wanted it to?</p><p>“What! What I want. I know what I want. Oh, God, please forget I said that,” Martin said, his face hot and flushed. Only his resolve to never let the lonely get him again kept him from attempting to vanish at this point. </p><p>Tim went to open his mouth, but Martin said, “Drop it,” in a tone that offered no room for argument, and the topic turned to what games they wanted to play.</p><p>They ended up getting through all of one game of rummy before it turned into a round of showing each other funny videos on YouTube.</p><p>Martin kept worrying that he’d say something else that would reveal how little he knew Sasha. Still, it was nice. Not the best time ever, but nice enough.</p><p>At some point, Jon came in with a small file of papers, sitting down without comment. Tim went to say something, but Martin shook his head at him. Soon enough, the rhythmic tapping of Jon’s pen provided a comforting background noise. Martin wondered if Jon even knew he was doing it. </p><p>Everything still felt a little awkward. For whatever his memories were worth, he remembered that he'd occasionally worried that Tim and Sasha’s efforts to include him were more out of politeness than a desire for his company. They were friendly, they were great, but they were much better friends with each other than they were with him.</p><p>Then again, it was like that with most people Martin knew at the institute. He wasn’t...well, he wasn’t Jon. He could do the small talk thing even if it wasn't his favourite. He could interact with others on a surface level just fine. At one point or another, he’d spoken with most people who worked here, and he always made an effort to remember little things about them. Their families, their hobbies, their plans for the summer, things like that. But it never seemed to lead to anything deeper than occasional small talk.</p><p>He could always sort of feel people categorise him: oh, there’s Martin. Polite, a bit nervous, good enough for a brief chat or a quick favour but nothing beyond that. Unless, of course, he actually relaxed, which normally resulted in him blurting out something tactless that he would spend the rest of the day regretting.</p><p>“Martin, what do you think?” Sasha asked, and Martin shook himself. God, where had his mind been? He couldn’t for the life of him say what he had just been watching.</p><p>“Er, sorry?” Martin said. “Think about what?”</p><p>“Martin, are you sure you’re okay?” Tim asked. </p><p>“Yes, I’m sure. I’m getting a bit sick of being asked that, but yes. I just...got distracted. What was the question?” </p><p>Martin had a sinking suspicion that he was actually better at talking to evil fear avatars than he was at talking to normal people at this point. But then again, he didn’t care what the evil fear avatars thought of him, whereas here he felt like he was being hopelessly rude to two people who gave up their Saturday to spend time with him.</p><p>“What do you think we should watch next?" Sasha asked.</p><p>“Um…” </p><p>Sasha scrolled through her recommended videos. “Oh. Hey. Ghost Hunt UK updated. Have you ever seen their stuff?”</p><p>Oh. Melanie. Had they ever found her and Georgie? One more thing Martin couldn't remember.</p><p>Martin answered, “Er, I’ve heard of them. Are you a fan?” It didn’t feel like a good idea to say anything else.</p><p>“Of course not. Sasha seems like she’d have much better taste than that ridiculous show,” Jon piped up from across the room while turning to face them. Martin had no clue he had even been listening.</p><p>“What do you have against them?” Sasha asked with a laugh.</p><p>“What do I...it is an absurd show filled with cheap gimmicks. It could be excellent if they would only focus on the evidence, but instead it is all jump scares or emotional gut punches,” Jon said. He paused, but it looked like he had a lot more to say.</p><p>“So basically, you are saying that you hate that they try to make it fun and engaging,” Tim said. </p><p>“I hate that they ignore their potentially good research for the sake of dramatics.” Martin stifled a giggle.  Jon complaining about anyone or anything being dramatic was really a bit rich.</p><p>Sasha rolled her eyes. “Well, I enjoy it. Not everything has to be highbrow. Really, Jon. It sounds like you would get along with this one commenter who will not shut up in every single comments section.” </p><p>“Commenter?” Martin asked.</p><p>“Oh, this guy, username “the-admiral-87” like, writes essays spread across multiple comments dissecting every single moment of the show. It’s so bad that the show itself takes time to give him shoutouts.” Jon fidgeted and looked at a spot on the floor. Martin, seeing this, bit his lip. Oh, this was precious. Seeing as he had no good explanation for how he recognised the username, he tried his hardest to keep a blank face.</p><p>Tim asked, “How bad could it be? By YouTube comment standards, I mean. That’s a pretty steep race to the bottom”</p><p>Sasha searched for an older video. “Oh, if it were just standard YouTube troll behaviour, it would be nothing to note. But no, this guy - who, by the way, actually subscribes to their patreon- is something else. Let’s see if I can find an example…”</p><p>Martin thought for a brief moment that Jon might actually try to find some excuse to leave the room. </p><p>Sasha continued, “Ah yes. Here we go: ‘ While as always I am here to express constructive criticism, first I would like to address the stupidity of this comments section. Speculating on the sexualities of various crew members in order to insult them is not only disgusting, but it also provides a distraction from any valid criticism of the research presented’.…well, that is really very nice of them. Good to know you can be an arrogant pedant while also not being a homophobe.” </p><p>Jon was now shuffling his feet back and forth like a child. Okay, Martin could not let this go. It had been way too long since he had gotten to properly tease Jon. “Jon? Something you care to share with the class?”</p><p>“What? I don’t know what you mean,” Jon said. It didn’t sound particularly convincing.</p><p>Then, Tim got it. “No way,” he said with a huge grin. “That’s you?”</p><p>Jon’s guilty look was as good as a confession.</p><p>“Seriously, Jon. This is - I mean, some of this analysis is actually really good. It just...isn't what I expected.” Sasha asked. She covered her mouth in an attempt to hide her laugh.</p><p>“Critiquing the show is a good intellectual exercise, and considering the comment section is evenly divided between adoring fans and terrible examples of humanity, I feel it is necessary to inject some balance.”</p><p>Tim grabbed the phone from Sasha and continued reading through. “Boss, you know that there is a whole art of matching your tone to the audience, right?”</p><p> Sasha looked over Tim’s shoulder, reading more. “‘The implication that any visual distortion accompanied by unusual EMF readings must imply a haunting is absurd seeing as the same could be achieved by perfectly natural camera glitches or being too close to an electrical wire’...Jon, it’s a show. It is meant to be entertaining. ”</p><p>“Yes, well, you can all just leave it,” Jon said, getting up to leave. He looked genuinely hurt.</p><p>Shit. Martin had screwed up again. He was too used to Jon being comfortable with Martin teasing him. Of it being a situation were they could mutually tease with no hurt feelings. </p><p>“Tim, Sasha, knock it off. He's allowed to have interests. Hey. Jon. Why don’t we watch the new episode? You can analyse it for us. Convince us you are right,” Martin said. </p><p>Jon scowled. “So you can mock me more?”</p><p>Martin glared at Tim and Sasha, who both had the decency to look abashed. </p><p>Tim said, “No, that sounds fun. I’d genuinely like to see your commentary on one of these episodes live.”</p><p>What followed was a deeply entertaining hour of the four of them crowded around the mobile watching the “Haunted Pub Crawl” episode of Ghost Hunt UK. </p><p>Jon got intensely into it. He actually got a blank piece of paper and started taking notes, insisting they pause the video frequently.  He also said every single catchphrase along with the performers. Martin couldn’t stop grinning, and he thought Tim and Sasha were genuinely enjoying themselves as well.</p><p>“I suppose you are going to mock me for that forever,” Jon said, suddenly self conscious again when the episode finished.</p><p>“We aren’t trying to mock you, Jon. Honestly, it’s just nice to see you...a bit more relaxed?” Martin hoped that didn’t sound too weird.</p><p>Tim laughed. “He’s right. In all seriousness, we like seeing that you are human, boss. You should do that more often.”</p><p>Jon frowned. “Tim, I have to maintain a certain level of professionalism. I am your boss.”</p><p>“I’m not saying you don’t, just, there’s only the four of us. We aren’t going to mutiny just because you act like a person once in a while.”</p><p>“That’s up for debate,” Jon said, but it was said with a slight grin. “That said, I do still have a lot I want to get done today. Thank you for this, though.”</p><p>Martin decided to push his luck. “Maybe we should do this again sometime?” Jon nodded.</p><p>Tim thought for a second, then said, “I’m voting a definite yes to hanging out again, but we are getting both of you out of the archive. Being cooped up down here is not healthy, and I doubt the worms can do anything if the four of us are together. You two both need to be somewhere different for a while.”</p><p>Martin asked, “Er, what exactly would that involve?” Tim’s idea of fun could be a bit much, especially if he was trying for something other than a movie/game night.</p><p>Jon, agreeing with Martin, added, “I really prefer not to “get out” at all. Crowded places don’t tend to be my idea of fun.”</p><p>Tim nodded. “I don't actually want to make you do anything that you'd hate. I know there's no change in hell you'd enjoy a karaoke night, Jon. So, if I had us do something that I guarantee would not involve a lot of other people or socialising, would you come?” Tim asked.</p><p>“I suppose,” Jon responded, looking slightly suspicious</p><p>Tim’s grin spread at that, and Martin had the sense that Jon had made a terrible mistake. Sasha threw an irritated glance at Jon, then glared at Tim.</p><p>“Jon, you do realise what you’ve just signed us up for, right? I want you to know, at whatever point we are all dragged out of here, it is going to be your fault,” Sasha said, pointing at him.</p><p>“What? I don’t?...” Jon said.</p><p>“That’s because you don’t know Tim’s hobbies like I do. In saying that you want to avoid crowds, Jon, you have just gotten us all signed up for quality time in nature,” Sasha said, wrinkling her nose.</p><p>Judging by the looks on Jon and Sasha’s faces, at least they would be able to bond over shared misery.</p><p>“Come on, guys. It will be great. We could all do with some fresh air. I'm not going to force anyone, I'm not going to make anyone do something you don't want, but we all need to get out of this place for a bit,” Tim said. “Just give me some time to plan.” </p><p>Martin wondered if “Tim planning” should count as the real 15th fear. </p><p> </p><p>* </p><p>The rest of the weekend passed fairly normally, except for an odd email he received from Sasha later that night. It was an offer to stay with her, saying she thought he might feel safer there than at the archive. That was...odd. Why would she offer that all of a sudden? He said no, of course. He still worried about making mistakes around her, and it might put her in danger from Jonah. </p><p>Still, he wanted to know what made her ask.</p><p>The next week actually involved making some progress with Jon. At first, Jon had accepted that Martin would be helping him for the time being, but he wanted Tim and Sasha to continue on with the cases they had been researching. </p><p>Martin asked him point blank, “Why don’t you bring everyone in on this? There is a lot to go through, and they might have a better idea of how to organise it all. I mean, isn’t this our priority?”</p><p>“Of course it is, Martin. But I don’t want to seem overly anxious, and I don’t necessarily feel that we should need more help.”</p><p>Martin thought about the best way to say what he said next. It was hard, because coming back in time didn’t make him any smarter, and while he might have been acting more confident, that was at least eighty percent faking it. </p><p>Still, if he could say one thing to his younger self, back when he had been terrified of being caught out for not having any qualifications, he knew what it would be. “Jon, you know that asking for help actually makes you look smarter, not dumber, right?”</p><p>Jon gave him a doubtful look. “What are you talking about?”</p><p>“Look. I know you didn’t pick me, but you picked them for this job. You clearly think that they are good at what they do. And...I think you might be kind of worried about looking like you don’t know what you are doing, but trusting them just shows you are good at picking people and therefore do know what you are doing.” There had probably been a less rambling way of saying that. Oh, well.</p><p>Jon frowned. “Martin, I’m not sure when you decided you had any qualifications to give lessons on how to manage employees, but..."</p><p>“I’m not trying to, only...why don’t you just ask what they think would be the best approach. Because right now, this is going sort of slow. Also, I think they’d like to be asked for their ideas.” </p><p>Martin knew he’d irritated Jon, but to Martin’s shock, he actually listened. He looked like he was going to his funeral when he told Martin to send Tim and Sasha in, but he listened. Martin wasn’t sure exactly what Jon said, but it caused a huge change in how they both acted towards Jon. Sasha seemed thrilled to be given a proper challenge. And Tim, well, if Martin were to guess, he’d say that Tim mainly seemed happy that Sasha was happy. </p><p>Jon had finally agreed to see if the statements would record digitally, and they had quickly discovered that none of Martin’s collection would. When Jon had suggested that perhaps there was simply an ongoing computer error, Sasha had gone to storage, picked out a few statements at random, and quickly proven that that wasn’t the case. </p><p>None of them could agree on what this meant, however.</p><p>Sasha had offered to try to come up with a better system of organisation, and Jon had agreed. She had discovered that while exact statements could not be digitally recorded, very brief summaries of those statements could be. She had created a tagging system so it was easier to sort by dates and places. The system then had a description of the actual statement’s physical location. Jon seemed genuinely delighted once she had explained how it worked. In retrospect, Martin honestly wondered why none of them had ever thought to try something like that before. It would have saved so much time. </p><p>Her affronted look when Tim called her out on basing her tagging system on some internet site was truly hilarious.</p><p>Tim, well, Tim favoured doing things in a bit more of an old-fashioned way, and now the archives was home to an honest-to-God conspiracy board, complete with pictures, post-it notes, and bits of string. Jon had protested that it was a cliché, but he eventually admitted that it did make things easier to see. And even though Martin already knew the connections, adding things to the board made him feel a little bit cool.</p><p>The biggest difference, though, was that even though Jon still refused to admit that these statements had to be supernatural in origin, he actually seemed to be listening and inviting debate.</p><p>“I still say using biological taxonomy to classify these makes no sense, Jon. You can’t seriously still be claiming that we are going to find some scientific explanation for zombie worm chick,” Tim said. </p><p>“She is hardly a zombie. And it seems as good a place as any. Also, equating cases involving mold, bacteria, and insects seems sloppy,” Jon replied. He undid a bit of string that Tim had just placed on the board.</p><p>Sasha considered this. “I think I’d go with two main categories. Illness versus insects. I mean, I know insects can be a vector for disease, but cases involving disease seem to cluster together in a way the insect ones don’t. At least, the name Amherst certainly only seems to pop up in the disease cases. Martin, why did you lump all of this together anyway?”</p><p>Martin tried to think of a response that wasn’t “a brief rundown of Smirke that he had no good reason for knowing,” or even worse, “that’s what the mysterious strings I saw told me to do.” Instead, he replied, “Um, well, the fear feels the same. I mean, both make you go ‘euuuugghhh’?”</p><p>There was a very loud silence.</p><p>Okay, that probably sounded stupid. Technically right, but it sounded stupid. Everyone stared at him in amused disbelief.</p><p>Jon replied, in his most deadpan voice, “I am absolutely certain that ‘euuuugghhh’ is not an appropriate means of classification.” </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Thus far, Jonah had kept his distance since their confrontation. Martin still felt an occasional poke into his mind, but they were faint and easy to push aside.</p><p>Therefore, when Jonah approached him one day as he was walking back from the canteen with sandwiches for both himself and Jon, he immediately felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. </p><p>“Good afternoon, Martin. How are you? It certainly seems like everyone has been quite busy down in the archives,” Jonah said, his tone solicitous. </p><p>“I’m fine, Elias. We’ve just had a lot on our plate,” Martin said.</p><p>“Yes. You’ve managed to organise a tremendous amount of information in a very short time. I’m also impressed you managed to track down that exterminator for the Jane Prentiss case. That was some quite good research there. Jon’s interviewing him now, I believe. It is good to see him taking a more active approach,” Jonah said, then looked at the sandwiches with a slight smirk. “And I do appreciate that you are making sure Jon eats.”</p><p>Martin’s blood froze. Shit. He’d specifically scheduled that interview for an hour from now when Jon had a meeting so that Jon would <em> not </em> be in a position to take that statement live. He’d planned for this.</p><p>But people were sometimes early,  and of course Jon would want to talk to him in person. Great.</p><p>He should stop it, but what could he do? Run off and demand Jon not talk to the man? That would seem ridiculous, and it would definitely reveal him to Jonah.</p><p>“Yeah, I guess. Er, I have to get back to work, Elias, but thank you for checking in," Martin said, his skin crawling as he forced a smile. </p><p>“Not at all. Thank you for your hard work, Martin.”</p><p>So, Martin had to go back to work while desperately pretending that he hadn’t just accidentally condemned a man to a lifetime of nightmares while nudging his future boyfriend towards monsterdom. He should have been more careful. </p><p>Dammit. Now he found himself rethinking all of his choices so far.</p><p>He tried to look at the positives. At least he had gotten the team working together better than they ever had. At least Jon was closer to admitting he believed. He just had to hang on a bit longer, and then they would be at a point where he could explain everything.</p><p>He tried not to listen in to Jon’s conversation while he halfheartedly helped Sasha run bits of a statement through google translate. She’d discovered that if she tried translating more than five words at a time, her computer would crash, so it was going extremely slowly. However, she had been so excited enough to see the name Gertrude in the statement that she’d practically begged Martin for help.</p><p>Tim, from across the room, made an exaggerated noise of disgust. </p><p>“Tim?” Sasha asked.</p><p>“Sorry, I’ve just been going through these spider cases, and they are creepy as hell,” Tim replied. </p><p>What? Martin, who had been in a bit of a funk, suddenly felt his attention zero in on Tim. “What spider cases?” he asked.</p><p>“You should know. This is all from your pile of statements. There were a bunch of spider ones, all set aside in a folder,” Tim answered.</p><p>“Oh,” Martin said in a small voice.</p><p>What was this? He knew damned well he wouldn’t have mixed in any web statements with corruption ones, so how the hell had they gotten there? </p><p>“It’s just,” Martin said, “they don’t seem to fit, do they? Spiders seem like a different category.” </p><p>Tim shook his head. “No? Not really. And don't you dare try to say it's because they are arachnids. Arachnids are a hell of a lot closer to insects than bacteria are.”</p><p>Sasha looked at Martin. “What, don’t tell me that just because you like the things, they don’t fit under your classification of ‘euugghhh’?"</p><p>“Yeah, I guess you guys are right,” Martin said, then he changed the subject. “What’s so creepy about that one, Tim?”</p><p>“Okay, so, I don’t really buy this one. It’s really far-fetched, but it just sends shivers down my spine. So, it’s another one about that house, the Hilltop Road one? And it’s about how apparently all the foster kids there ended up encased in web in the basement except for this one kid who escaped. </p><p>But you know what’s getting me? It’s that whatever the spook was in this story, it seemed to try to make the kids little model citizens before it bothered to kill them. Made them brush their teeth and go to bed on time. The thought of something that seems so innocent at first controlling you in the littlest ways before striking, well...this one would be one hell of a horror movie. That’s all I’m saying.” </p><p>Jon then came into the room, but Martin’s head was swimming too much for him to pay attention. He knew that what he was doing wasn’t the same. It wasn’t, it was just ... he was making things better, wasn’t he?  </p><p>He knew why he had chosen to go about things this way. He knew...well, he had good reasons to not reveal everything yet, even if he couldn't quite tell where the certainty that he shouldn't say anything was coming from.</p><p>But he was still having everyone bond over a mystery he already knew the answer to. He was apparently doing a good enough job organising the archive and <em> feeding </em>Jon that Jonah was convinced he was here to help. He was still trying to nudge everyone into getting along...</p><p>To top it all off, he had no clue how those web statements had gotten mixed in with the rest. Was it the web itself? Was Jonah actually still suspicious, and he was hoping someone else would catch on? Did he himself actually do it? His memories of that night were a bit blurry....</p><p>Martin both really wanted and really didn’t want to know the answer.</p><p> </p><p>* </p><p>One night later that week, the door to the room where he was sleeping opened. It probably said something that at this point, his first thought was just <em> oh God, not again.  </em></p><p>Sasha walked in, looking nervous.</p><p>“Martin? Can I talk to you?” she asked with a forced calmness. She sat down, fiddling with her skirt.</p><p>“Er, yeah. What’s up? You’re here late” he said. He hoped it sounded casual. </p><p>“Okay, so...you know I used to work in artifact storage, right?”</p><p>“Yes,” he answered, unsure of what that had to do with anything.</p><p>She breathed in deeply before continuing. “Well, in artifact storage, we had protocols for what to do if someone had a weird encounter with one of the artifacts. Sometimes, someone would all of a sudden just...act a bit different. They’d do things without realising it, or talk a bit strangely. Most times, it was nothing. Still, we all learned to keep an eye out. Document it. Make sure the person wasn’t a threat to themselves or others.”</p><p>“O...kay,” Martin said. So she definitely had noticed him acting weird around her.</p><p>Sasha went on, “well, after you came back from your encounter with Prentiss, you were acting strange. Not like yourself. You held yourself so differently. You used to act like you were trying to disappear, to make yourself as small as possible, but you came back with such confidence. And it wasn’t just that. When you looked at me, well, it was like you were looking at a stranger. I believed you when you said you weren’t infected, but...if I didn’t know better, I would have thought you were some sort of imposter. I know that sounds silly.”</p><p>Martin cringed at the irony. “And...what do you think now?” </p><p>“Let me finish. So, I didn’t want to spook you. Most times, people sort of went back to normal after a couple of days away from whatever artifact they encountered. But I wanted to keep an eye out, just to make sure you were really okay, so I set up some cameras around the archives.”</p><p>“What! You were filming me? That...that isn’t okay, Sasha! Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?” Martin was temporarily too outraged to be worried. </p><p>“Privacy in the 21st century is a lie. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been paying attention,” Sasha said with a slight smirk. </p><p>“What did you see?” Martin asked quietly. He would not freak out. Not yet. </p><p>“I’m not quite sure. Some of the footage got pretty distorted. Like, the night when you tore up the archives looking for things...half the time you are looking at something that isn’t there, and for the other half the entire video is corrupted. And for a second, you looked, well...I don’t know what you looked like. And after what I saw with you and Elias....” she trailed off, looking at him curiously. Martin’s breath caught in his throat, and Sasha nodded sadly.</p><p>“Ah, thanks for confirming that you were aware of that. I thought you were acting with him, but I couldn’t be sure. At first I was terrified for you, but after I realised you weren’t shaken at all...I have questions. Lots of them. And I think that whatever this is, you know enough to give me some answers,” Sasha looked like she was trying so hard to put on a brave, determined face, but she seemed almost...scared. Of him. Oh God, she was, wasn’t she? If Martin had seen some of that, he’d be scared of him too. </p><p>“Sasha, did you tell anyone else about this? Does anyone else know you are down here?” Martin asked. What was he going to do if she had told everyone? How could he explain it?</p><p>“Martin, I haven’t told anyone anything. That...that wasn’t a threat, was it? About what you’ll do if I do tell?” she asked, glancing worriedly towards the door. </p><p>Great. And now he’d made things worse.</p><p>“Oh, God, no. Sorry. I didn’t realise how that sounded...no. That wasn’t a threat. I promise.” He tried to make a reassuring gesture with his hands. She flinched. Then, he had another thought.</p><p>“Wait,” he said incredulously. “Sasha...you thought I might be a threat but you decided to confront me late at night? Alone?”</p><p>She looked embarrassed. “Er, when you put it that way it sounds a bit stupid, doesn’t it?” </p><p>Martin buried his face in his hands. “Well, yes. Yes it does. Christ, I thought Jon was bad enough. Is there something about this place that just, like, sucks the self preservation instincts out of everyone?” </p><p>He wanted to keep everyone alive, but it seemed like every single person he wanted to protect was going to make that very difficult.</p><p>“But seriously, Sasha, I swear. I’m not...I’m not here to hurt anyone. Whatever you saw, I just want to help.”</p><p>Sasha looked him straight in the eyes. “Martin...are you still Martin? I’d really like to believe that. I would. But after what I saw, I can’t. Not unless you start talking."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Tim and Sasha are kind of assholes to Jon, but they do get called out on it and pull back from it. <br/>In general, keep in mind that the found family is slow burn in this one. Everyone is going to occasionally overstep, be an asshole, or assume that they know better than someone else what's good for them.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Eyes and Not Quite Lies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Martin talks to Sasha as things get even more complicated.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to everyone who has left comments or kudos on this fic. I love each and every one of you. If you want to hang out, I'm thoughtlessthinkythoughts on tumblr and ginabresby#0542 on discord.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Martin bit his lip and tried to think. Although he could feel his brain desperately trying to function, it refused. This could turn into a disaster very quickly. Maybe it already had.</p><p>Sasha sat next to him with a look that let him know there would be no wiggling out of this. She expected answers, and they had better be convincing ones. Attempting to buy himself a little time, he glanced around at the room, wondering where in the dusty cabinets Sasha might have hidden a camera. </p><p>The thing was, he truly wanted to tell her everything. He didn’t like keeping secrets from his friends. If it were just a matter of trusting her, he would have told her the whole story right then and there. But her mind wasn’t protected from Elias, and he couldn’t risk it. Even if he could set up a time or place where it would be hard for Elias to see, there would still be the chance that he could pull something out of her mind later. Then, it wouldn’t take many more steps for the world to be doomed again. </p><p>Once, he had pointed out the absurdity of thinking he could be key to saving the world. Going back in time had done nothing to change his opinion. </p><p>What was he supposed to say?</p><p>“Martin? Earth to Martin?” Sasha waved a hand in front of his face, snapping him back to reality. “Please. Tell me what’s going on. If...if you are in some sort of trouble, let me help.” </p><p>“It’s complicated,” he said. The words sounded pathetic to his own ears. </p><p>Sasha snorted and gave him a look. “Really. I never would have guessed. Martin, I saw our boss threaten you with a gun, and then you did some creepy...impersonation thing, and then <em> he </em> got scared and left. Not to mention the freaking glowing on one of the other tapes. You know, I shouldn’t even be doing this. I should have gone to someone, but I couldn’t figure out who to tell. The police would just laugh at me. Then I thought about just leaving. Running, and not looking back. But…”</p><p>“But you couldn’t,” he stated quietly. “You physically couldn’t quit.”</p><p>She fidgeted in discomfort, and Martin thought back to how painful that slow realisation was. The first time around, he had written and rewritten resignation letters, trying again and again to find the right words. And even after he’d found out that he literally couldn’t leave, he’d never been sure how much of his reluctance had been the institute’s influence, and how much had just been him.</p><p>“No. I mean, I didn’t. I decided I didn’t actually want to, but...” </p><p>He shook his head. “No, I meant can’t. You literally couldn’t leave. None of us can. It is some sort of supernatural bond. This place, the archives, it traps us. I mean, try again if you don’t believe me. You’ll see what I mean.” </p><p>“Martin, that doesn’t make any sense.” Sasha thought for a long moment before continuing, “I wish I could say that sounds impossible, but at one point I was so set on leaving, and then I just couldn’t.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said softly.</p><p>Sasha bit her lip, thinking. “Right. I have even more questions now, and apparently I need to mourn the idea of ever having career prospects again.” She laughed bitterly.</p><p>“Sasha…” Martin started, but he didn’t know what to follow up with.</p><p>Martin kept hoping that if he could delay just a little longer, a brilliant idea for what to say would pop into his head like it had with Elias. But lying to someone you hated was one thing. Lying to a friend was something quite different. </p><p>No, he refused. He wouldn’t lie, and he wouldn't let any mysterious urge to keep silent win. He just had to be smart about it, and maybe he couldn’t say the whole truth. But he would tell her something. Maybe...</p><p>“This is going to sound like a cop-out, but can we postpone this conversation just for a bit?” It was late, which meant that Elias was likely at home enjoying a daily dose of people watching. </p><p>“Are we not safe now?” Sasha asked with a startled look. She glanced around, as if expected some unseen threat to pop around the corner.</p><p>“We need a time when fewer eyes could be watching us. I’ll explain what I mean then. Just, all I ask is that you don’t say anything to anyone until then.” </p><p>“Um, no. Something dangerous is going on, and you just told me I’m trapped here. I need to know what the hell is going on, Martin. How can you tell me to just wait?” She sounded desperate and angry, and he just wanted to fix that, but he couldn’t.</p><p>“Because I don’t want you to die, and I’m scared of what could happen if I tell you, okay? I want to talk to somebody, anybody about this. I really do. But I don’t want to put anyone else in danger.” He hated how much fear he could hear in his own voice. “Please, just give me a little longer.”</p><p>Sasha looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, seeing you panic is actually a little reassuring. After all of your overnight competence, it makes you seem more like Martin.”</p><p>“Hey! That’s not fair. I wasn’t that bad before,” Martin replied indignantly. </p><p>Sasha shook her head with faint amusement. </p><p>Martin just needed to think of a better time for this. He tried to remember Elias’s schedule. It would be harder for him to focus if he was listening to people squabbling in a meeting. At least he would have a little bit of time to plan.  “Tuesday at one in the afternoon. We can talk here, just, make sure you take down the cameras before then.” </p><p>Sasha frowned as she considered this. “You do realise how that sounds? Wanting to talk to me at a pre-appointed time with no cameras?” </p><p>Martin winced. Okay, yeah. From a certain point of view, that made him sound like a serial killer or something. She no longer seemed that threatened by him, though.</p><p>“Yeah, I know, but, you aren’t the only one who can see through the cameras?” he said, voicing it as a question. Sasha’s look of scepticism spoke volumes.</p><p>“You make this all sound like a bad spy thriller. Do you think someone is going to hack my cameras? Do you even know how hacking works?” </p><p>“Not exactly. Just...I promise I will explain when I said.” Martin looked into her eyes, begging her to leave it. </p><p>Sasha took a long moment before deciding how to respond.</p><p>“Martin, I just want to state that I don’t like this. After everything I saw, I’m not even sure if you’re human. But I do think I trust you more than I trust Elias, so I will keep your secret, whatever it is, until then. But whatever you have to tell me then, it better be good.” She emphasised the last part, pointing her finger at him.</p><p>Then, she got up to leave. As she was about to walk through the door, Martin called out to her, “Oh, and Sasha?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Can I see the footage?” </p><p>She shrugged. “Sure. I can send it to you. Maybe you can explain it.”</p><p>"One more think," Martin looked at her, pleading with his eyes for her to understand. He lowered his voice a bit, trying for ominous. "You will not remember this conversation." Her eyes widened, and then she turned and left without another word.</p><p>Martin almost wished she had refused to give him the footage. He really didn’t want to see it. He...he didn’t want to know. While he knew there was something different about him since he returned, he would be perfectly content to never know the details.</p><p>No, he had to know. He couldn’t keep running away from facts he didn’t like. So that meant he had to face that footage, whether he liked it or not.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Later that evening, Sasha sent him an email with two video attachments. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, gathering his courage, before tentatively clicking on the first one.</p><p>It showed his confrontation with Elias. Events occurred pretty much exactly as he remembered them. His acting...wasn’t great.  He could admit that. To his eyes, it looked like a desperate man trying anything to stay alive. It certainly seemed to legitimately spook Elias though. </p><p>The only concerning moment thing was it looked like Elias kept glancing at the camera. At least, Martin thought he was. It was pretty subtle. Had Elias known the camera was there? He had to have, if he could see through cameras. Why would he let something like this be recorded?</p><p>Martin pushed the thought aside. Even if Elias was onto him, there wasn’t anything he could do about it right now. He just had to hope he could keep him guessing a little longer.</p><p>He hit play on the second video. On screen, he walked into the archives storage room, staggering significantly. Martin remembered being exhausted, but his gait made it look more like he had been drunk or drugged. He held out his hands in front of him, moving them with a slow, dreamlike pattern. His entire head swayed, following the motions of his hands.</p><p>For a long while, he seemed to stare into empty space, and then clumsily moved to hit the light switch. The screen went black.</p><p>However, the sounds of shuffling continued. As time went on, the sounds sped up, footsteps and rustling papers moving at a pace Martin knew he could not be capable of. At one point, Martin almost wondered if the footage had been artificially sped up, but there was a timestamp in the lower right hand corner that showed the seconds passing normally. This trend continued for some time, and Martin skipped ahead as the recording lasted several hours. </p><p>At various points when he paused, streaks of white appeared across the screen. One of these was bright enough to show an outline of his face. He played those few seconds over and over again, watching his head turn.</p><p>He looked like himself, he thought, except….</p><p>The first image showed a solid white light emanating from his face. A trick of the camera, maybe? Cameras made people’s eyes look red often enough. And a blurry image didn’t mean anything. But he finally managed to pause the video at just the right moment, and... </p><p>For a short moment, the intense light faded to an unearthly glow, and his individual eyes became visible. They were a glassy, opaque pure white. </p><p>The screen definitely showed more than two. </p><p>Martin hit play again. On screen, he cocked his head slightly, eyes ablaze, then turned towards the camera. The image abruptly cut out, transitioning into snowy static like you’d see on an old television. The scene couldn’t have been longer than five seconds.</p><p>Martin wanted to be sick.</p><p>He’d seen so many monsters, and he’d always held onto the fact that he wasn’t one of them. Even when he had fallen deep into the lonely, it hadn’t been like this. </p><p>After the end, he’d pushed Jon to use his powers until Jon had rightfully called him out on it. He’d gone too far, and he’d apologised, but...was this what it felt like to Jon? Like you were no longer sure who or what you were? </p><p>He hated the powers, and he didn't want to serve any of them. He’d made that mistake once, thinking that he could give into one just enough to save the world. It didn’t feel like a mistake he’d make again, but then again, he couldn’t really remember what he’d done at the very end. There had been so much suffering, and he’d been less than useless. If he had been offered the chance to save the world, what would he have given up in return? What would he have agreed to?</p><p>He wished he knew.</p><p>*</p><p>Martin had hoped that he might have a few peaceful days to get his thoughts together, but the universe had never been so kind to him. So naturally, the very next day, Tim seized on a moment when they were alone to suddenly pull him aside.</p><p>Tim, slinging an arm around his shoulder, asked loudly, “So, you know how you did something weird, and then we magically had a huge connected pile of gross buggy statements?” </p><p>Martin glanced around to see if anyone was approaching before attempting to shush Tim. No one was around, but there weren’t any obvious escape routes either.</p><p>Was it really that obvious that he was acting strangely? Martin had thought he was doing kind of okay with the whole ‘hide the fact that he’s from the future’ thing. But no, apparently everyone but Jon had noticed something was up. </p><p>Maybe that was at least one strike against the idea that the evil manipulation power had claimed him. He apparently sucked at this.</p><p>Tim said in a stage whisper, “Is this better? Gross buggy statements? Weird sorting abilities? Ring a bell?”</p><p>“I don’t, what are you, what are you talking…”</p><p>Tim cut off his stammering. “Look, I don’t care how you did it or what sort of origin story you’ve been through. Lord knows I can’t figure it out, but I’m not about to force you to confess where your dark powers of organising came from. I just want to know, do you think you could do it again?” Tim looked him straight in the eye, much more serious than his words would suggest.</p><p>“Do what again?” he asked, gripping the files he was holding like a security blanket. Tim rolled his eyes.</p><p>“Come on, Martin. You know what I’m talking about. Put a bunch of statements together. Use your magic archive sorting skills. You managed to go through more files in a night than we all have managed in months. I just want to know if you can find something for me, ” Tim said with a hint of anger.</p><p>Martin tried very hard to calm himself down. If only he could think of some way to deny it. Maybe jumping into a plan as soon as he got back hadn’t been the best move after all, no matter how logical it had seemed at the time.</p><p>“Right, that. Er, maybe? I could try? Are you looking for something specific?” Martin asked, smiling weakly at Tim. </p><p>Tim raised his eyebrows. “Huh. I didn’t expect that to work. I seriously had planned on at least a solid hour of you trying to deny everything. So, I’m looking for anything to do with circuses or clowns. Or the buildings of Robert Smirke. It’s a...pet project of mine, and I’ve been struggling to find anything,” Tim said, his hands clenched into fists. “I just thought, with your new magical research skills, maybe you'd be willing to help.” Tim looked away, raw and vulnerable. </p><p>Oh. Of course that’s what Tim wanted. Martin's heart broke slightly. “I can promise that I’ll try. I can’t say it will be right away or useful, but I’ll do my best. I’m sorry I can’t promise you more than that.”</p><p>“No, no that’s...honestly I thought you’d just try to deny everything or make me explain. Thank you, Martin.” </p><p>“No, I mean, thanks for not asking me how.” </p><p>“My current theory is that instead of being held hostage by worms, some weird mentor figure kidnapped you and you were training on a mountaintop the week you were gone. Or maybe you were possessed by the ghost of archivists past. Radioactive spider maybe? I can’t decide. If you ever want to tell me though, I’m here to listen,” Tim said. </p><p>Martin grinned apologetically. “Sorry. You’ll have to keep guessing” There was no reason to think any spiders involved were radioactive, after all. That seemed like it would be the extinction’s thing.</p><p>“Darn. But seriously. Whatever happened, things have been better around here. Jon’s at least partially removed the stick from his arse that appeared when he started this job, and it feels like we all have a purpose down here. So, you know, thanks. And thanks in advance for whatever you find. Something, anything, would be amazing.”</p><p>He sounded genuinely grateful, which surprised Martin a bit. Martin would have thought that as soon as Tim knew anything weird was up, he’d turn on him immediately. Then again, this wasn’t the bitter Tim he remembered. This Tim didn't have nearly as many reasons to distrust everyone.</p><p>Tim smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. Then he continued, “Also, hey, you’ll never believe what happened the other day. I thought the world had ended or something.” </p><p>Martin breathed a sigh of relief, glad at the mysterious topic change. “What? You found someone who could resist your charms?”</p><p>“You wound me,” Tim said, dramatically laying a hand over his heart. “But no. As much as that clearly would be a sign of supernatural horrors, I was talking about our boss. You’ll never guess what he said to me the other day.” </p><p>“What?” Martin ignored the undignified voice in his head that wanted to ask if it had been about him.</p><p>“In response to me asking what his explanation for a statement was, he said, and I swear to you I am not making this up, that he ‘could not see a possible natural explanation for the events as presented.’” </p><p>“Seriously?” Martin’s eyebrows rose. He had been pretty sure that it was going to take a direct confrontation with something to get Jon to that point.</p><p>“Yeah. I know. Like I said, I thought the world was about to end.” </p><p><em> Hopefully not, </em>Martin thought, watching Tim head back to work. </p><p>Great. Now, he had to figure out how to approach Tim’s request on top of everything. After seeing the video of himself searching through the archive, he didn’t want to do it again. His only other option was just telling Tim what he knew, but he was already planning on telling Sasha some information. The more people knew, the more likely it was that Elias would tear it from their heads. So he guessed that like it or not, he had to try to use the strings again. It wasn’t as if he was actually hurting anyone by doing so.</p><p>Although, part of him doubted he should push Tim in the right direction on this. Tim had gotten himself killed in his quest for vengeance last time. Martin wondered if giving him information about the stranger might mean that was doomed to happen again. But keeping him in the dark was just as likely to hurt him.</p><p>How much of Tim’s mental state had been because of what happened to his brother, and how much had been born out of desperation due to everything else? Martin knew that Tim had been hurting, but he just wasn’t very good at understanding people sometimes. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for Tim turning into an angry shell of himself again. If nothing else, that version of Tim had been really unpleasant to deal with.</p><p>Martin wished that he could have at least one problem that didn’t feel like some huge puzzle. He didn’t know what the “right thing to do” was. He wasn’t even qualified for his actual job, never mind the job of saving the world.</p><p>He missed the days when all he had to worry about was worms. Those at least died when you stomped on them or sprayed carbon dioxide at them. </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>To top it all off, Jon was looking more drained by the day. Martin had been overjoyed that Jon had started to admit that he believed more than he let on. However, the victory felt hollow when Martin saw just how resigned he looked each time added more connections to their conspiracy board. He'd contemplated trying to reveal at least a bit more information to Jon, but once again he felt like the words literally would not come out of his mouth. Something wasn't letting him fix this in that way. It was as though a voice in his head kept whispering <em>not yet</em>.</p><p>At first, Martin felt confused. During this time period, the first time around, Jon had been a bit of a dick, but he hadn’t been this much of a mess. That had started later. But now he seemed overwhelmed to the point of falling apart. The only difference was what Martin had done, so he knew it had to be his fault somehow. </p><p>It took him a few days, but when Martin figured out what was causing the difference, he felt sick to his stomach. It was the statements. The first time around, Jon had been going through, what, maybe one or two real statements a week. Sometimes less. Now, he had a huge pile of them that he felt obligated to get through, and no knowledge of why that was a terrible idea. </p><p>Martin remembered what it was like when he’d first read one of the statements. Reading through it felt easy, almost too easy. The words flowed off his tongue as he felt the roller coaster of emotions behind the story. It was only after, once he’d stopped speaking and caught his breath, that he’d realised just how drained he was. </p><p>It was like getting over the flu and coming home after a funeral at the same time. There were a million terrible feelings rolled into one. The feeling of needing to cry but being unable to. The feeling that he had done something wrong, something gross, but that he couldn’t quite say what it was. And above all, the knowledge that something somewhere was filled with delight because of what he had done.</p><p>Of course, as he kept reading them, it had gotten easier. Normal, even. But he couldn’t let it become normal for Jon. He had to keep Jon from falling to the eye, at least as much as he could. So, he would just have to remove some of the burden.</p><p>Without knocking, Martin entered Jon’s office.</p><p>"Hi, Jon. I'm not busy right now. Let me just take a few of those for you," he said, grabbing a few stray statements off the desk. </p><p>“Martin, what on earth are you doing?” Jon sounded more confused than angry.</p><p>“Look at you, Jon. You’re exhausted, and I have some time. So I’m going to help you record these.” Martin tried to go for a don’t argue with me tone, but this was Jon. Of course he was going to argue the point.</p><p>“That’s hardly your job, Martin. I am fully capable of getting these recorded, and you have your own research to do.” Jon said sharply, with one hand protectively covering the statement he had in front of him. Martin placed a hand on the same page, attempting to tug it slightly towards himself.</p><p>“Why not? Is there some rule that only you can do recordings? Or are you worried my reading won’t be dramatic enough? Not enough amateur theatre experience to express the dark secrets within properly? Give me one good reason that you should have to do all of them.” </p><p>Jon blinked several times before sighing. “It just...doesn’t feel right.”</p><p>“It doesn’t feel right?” Martin prompted as he watched Jon twitch in response.  </p><p>He hoped Jon realised that there were only two choices here. He could admit there was a deeper reason he didn’t want others reading the statements, or he could let Martin help. Either way, something had to give. </p><p>Martin waited a moment to see which choice he’d pick. </p><p>“I...you’re right. I can’t think of a good explanation. If you insist, you can help with the recording.” Jon lifted his hand off the statement they had both been attempting to claim.</p><p>“Thank you. I...I just want you to take care of yourself, and these are clearly getting to you. I’m sorry if I was rude just then.” Martin blushed slightly. Then, he continued to pick up a few more statements.</p><p>“I appreciate your concern, even if it is unnecessary. But please, be careful. The statements, well, I know it must just look like reading a story, but they can get to you. No, I shouldn’t let you do this. It doesn’t seem like it, but it’s dangerous.”</p><p>“It’s fine, Jon. That’s why you have assistants, right? To help you.” </p><p>Jon looked at him curiously. <em> “Why do you want to do this so badly?” </em></p><p>Martin noticed several things all at one. The words had a weight to them, a heaviness that he could physically feel. The air crackled as if brimming with static electricity. He felt his mouth try to open against his will. And then he noticed the scariest thing of all. He could fight it. Jon had compelled him, and he didn’t have to answer.</p><p>Swallowing, he said, “I really do just want to help. I care about you, and I hate seeing you so tired.” That was all true, but there was so much he was holding back. That he was able to hold back.</p><p>Finally, Jon nodded, and Martin moved to leave.</p><p>“Martin?” Jon called out before he left the room. Martin turned back to face him. “I am not...that dramatic when I read these.” Martin’s heart swelled at Jon’s indignant look. It was really quite cute.</p><p>Martin raised his eyebrows. “Okay, Jon. If that’s what you need to tell yourself.” Jon scowled.</p><p>Then he walked out to the sound of Jon muttering about “amateur theatre” under his breath. He felt lighter than it had in days.</p><p>He was going to count this one as a win and think about how he could fight the compulsion later. </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>On the day of their meeting, Martin kept throwing glances at Sasha, who seemed to be ignoring him. She had been perfectly polite, but she had been keeping her distance since they spoke. She seemed to have accepted that she needed to act as if their conversation had never happened.</p><p>Honestly, he was nervous as hell. He’d tried getting into the tunnels, but they were just too infested with worms already. He needed to look into where to buy fire extinguishers, and maybe a flamethrower. But for now, that wouldn’t work. </p><p>Instead, knowing Elias had a meeting, he had to settle for making it as distracting as possible. He could personally attest to how obnoxious the heads of departments meeting was. Peter had made him do it several times to demonstrate why he should give himself over to the lonely. Or possibly Peter just didn’t want to deal with the squabbling himself. Either way, it had almost worked. Ten minutes of that nonsense and he had never wanted to see another human being again.</p><p>In addition to the normal meeting nonsense, he had started three separate rumours for Elias to deal with. One was that everyone was getting a raise, the second was that there was going to be an audit, and the third was that there were going to be layoffs. Hopefully he’d be too busy tearing his hair out to pay any attention to Martin and Sasha.</p><p>He had thought a lot about what to say to her, and he had come to the conclusion that he just had to take advantage of one simple fact: the web was annoying as hell. It thrived on making people paranoid about some grand master plan.</p><p>So if Elias saw any of this, he could just try to play it off as one more layer of his plot that Elias was too stupid to understand. The web works in mysterious ways and all that. If he had to suffer from the bullshit of questioning every choice he made, it only seemed fair to make Elias do the same. </p><p>At least, that’s what he was telling himself. Deep down, part of him just desperately wanted to tell any small part of the truth to someone, and for whatever reason he thought he'd be able to tell it to Sasha. Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he should be trying the Gertrude approach. The fate of the entire world was on the line. He should do whatever was necessary no matter who gets hurt.</p><p>Perhaps, at one point, he would have seriously thought about going that route But whenever he let the thought cross his mind, all he could hear in his head was his Jon. He would have hated that. </p><p>So, in the absence of knowing what to do, he was going to do what he did best. Follow Jon’s lead. No turning into the next Gertrude. He was going to tell Sasha as much as he could, and damn the consequences.</p><p>At one o’clock on the dot, she immediately rose, gave him a quick glance, and left the room, announcing that she was leaving for lunch. Martin quickly followed.</p><p>“Right,” she said. “What can you talk about now that you couldn’t a few nights ago?” She sat at a table and folded her hands, looking at him expectantly. Martin, out of nerves, remained standing. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite manage to stand still either.</p><p>“Er, okay, I guess I’ll start with why I asked you to wait. So, Elias, he can see things. Know things. And he can see pretty much anything, but not when he’s distracted. And right now, he’s in his most frustrating meeting of the week. So it is a little bit safer to talk now, but we only have about an hour.” </p><p>“Elias is clairvoyant? Like a mind reader or psychic or something?” Sasha threw him a dubious glance.</p><p>“Sort of? Yeah. I mean, think about how it feels when he looks at you. When he really looks.” </p><p>Sasha shuddered in response. To Martin’s surprise, she didn’t laugh him off. “I...I thought he was just a creep. But I hate how much sense that makes. So, if we talk when he’s at a meeting, he can’t read our thoughts?”</p><p>“Eh. It’s complicated. He can’t read mine at all, but I don’t know why. He could read yours after, or pull the information from your mind, but it is less likely he can pay attention right now. And the meeting thing isn’t foolproof, but we can’t get into the tunnels right now, so-”</p><p>“Tunnels?” </p><p>“Er, right. There are a bunch of secret tunnels under the institute and it is really hard for him to see you when you are down there, but right now there are a bunch of worms so we can’t use them.” Martin felt like this really would be a lot easier to sell if the truth were something normal. </p><p>“.....right. Martin, tell me you are hearing what you are saying.” Sasha spoke slowly while crossing her arms. “This explanation is just making things sound more ridiculous.”</p><p>“I know. Trust me, I know.” </p><p>Sasha massaged her temples with her thumbs as though she had a headache. “So, let’s say you are right. Elias being able to read minds certainly would explain some things about the man. How? How does he do it?” </p><p>Elias had never exactly sat down and explained the nitty gritty details of how his powers worked. </p><p>“I don’t know exactly. He can see through eyes. Like real eyes, pictures of eyes, cameras, that sort of thing. But he can also just know things about your past, and I don’t think he needs to use eyes for that.”</p><p>Sasha considered this. “Wait, so shouldn’t our eyes be closed right now?” “Well, he can’t really see me, but I guess? You can close your eyes if you want?” Sasha thought for a moment. She then stood for a second, reached up onto a shelf, and removed a small device that she then placed in her pocket. </p><p>After a pause, she took her mobile, which was partially sticking out of her pocket, turned it around 180 degrees, and pocketed it again. Hiding the camera, Martin realised. Returning to her seat, she gently closed her eyes before gesturing in his general direction for him to continue.</p><p>Martin took a moment to be deeply impressed before speaking again. He thought he saw why Gertrude had wanted her in charge.</p><p>“If Elias does see any of this, I’m hoping he will just come after me. But I can only tell you a little. I’m sorry about that.”</p><p>Sasha nodded, mulling this over. “I don’t like that you aren’t telling me everything, but I guess I don’t really have a choice. I’m not going to stop trying to figure everything out, though.”</p><p>“That...that’s fair. I’ll answer as much as I can.”</p><p>It turned out that Sasha had a lot more questions about how exactly Elias could see things, questions Martin couldn’t answer. She kept wanting to turn it into questions about surveillance and technology. Martin kept protesting that thinking about it that way wasn’t really helpful while looking nervously at the clock. They only had about an hour before he had to cut this off. Finally, she changed the subject.</p><p>“In the video...you called him Jonah. Why?” </p><p>Martin shrugged, then realised her eyes were still closed. “Because that’s who he is? Elias is Jonah Magnus. Or at least, Jonah took over the body of a man named Elias. The real Elias has been dead for years.”</p><p>Sasha buried her head in her hands, digging her fingernails into her skull. “You’re telling me our boss is actually the immortal body hopping version of this institute’s founder. Really? Martin, I’m trying here, I swear I am, but you have to admit that this is all a little far-fetched.” </p><p>He laughed nervously. “I know. Trust me. I know this sounds really weird.”</p><p>“That’s one word for it. I have so many questions that I don’t even know where to start. How did you find out? Like, this is the part that’s getting me. I am very certain that as of a few weeks ago, you knew none of this. What happened to you, Martin?” Martin wasn’t the best at reading tone, but he thought she sounded both frustrated and concerned. </p><p>He shifted his weight from foot to foot before answering. The words<em> I'm from the future </em>would not leave his lips, no matter how much he tried to get them out. So, he was going to have to fudge things a little bit.</p><p>“I...okay, so I was investigating the Carlos Vittery case, the spider one? And before I ran into Prentiss, I had some sort of a vision. A really clear one. So now I kind of just...know stuff.” His voice cracked on the word stuff. <em> Good job, Martin, </em> he thought. <em> That sounded really convincing.  </em></p><p>He felt vaguely surprised that Sasha hadn’t started shouting.</p><p>“A vision,” Sasha repeated, her voice flat. “Martin, you do realise that visions are one of the few things that make us tell people to go back home instead of telling us their stories. And we listen to almost everybody.”</p><p>“Yeah, I mean, I know. But it’s true.”</p><p>“Can you prove it? If you’ve seen the future, tell me one thing that’s going to happen this year?” </p><p>Martin thought. He’d never been one for keeping up with current events - but this was early in 2016. Even he could remember key events from 2016. There was a huge list of nonsense that she would never believe until it happened. </p><p>He missed being certain that 2016 was the worst the world could get.</p><p>He gave her a run down of the worst of it. Her facial expressions shifted rapidly between doubt, amusement, and sheer horror. </p><p>“If you are making this up, you have one hell of an imagination, Martin. If any of that happens, I will definitely believe you...but that doesn’t answer any of my questions about you. Why did you tell Elias those things? And...what are you, Martin? Because knowing the future doesn’t explain how you were able to sort through the archives so quickly, or how strange it looked on camera.” </p><p>He took a deep, steadying breath while walking a few steps. He’d thought about this. He could do this.  “Right. So, in my...vision, I saw that Elias has some sort of evil plan, and I want to stop it.”</p><p>“Evil plan? What? Don’t tell me he wants to end the world or something.” </p><p>Martin remained silent. After a moment, Sasha let out a snort and threw her hands into the air.</p><p>“Sure, why not? At this point I'm not even that surprised. I’m in a job that I can’t leave, and my boss wants to end the world. Continue.”</p><p>“And I told him something based on what I saw to make him think I’m here to help him.” Martin wondered what Sasha was really thinking. If he were in her place, he was pretty sure he’d think he was delusional. “And...I don’t know what the vision did to me, or why I could get those statements together so quickly. Not exactly, at least. But I won’t lie and say it was something normal. I know it’s not.”</p><p>Sasha turned her face towards him, eyes closed, lips pursed. “I...I believe you. It sounds ridiculous, but I knew there was more to this place. I mean, at least I feel like believing you is going to get me a lot closer to getting some real answers than trying to go it alone.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Martin let out a sigh of relief.</p><p>“But if you want me to trust you, I need the answer to one more question.”</p><p>“Okay.” He just hoped it would be something he could answer.</p><p>“What did you show me when I went over to your flat last year?” </p><p>“Er, what?” To Martin’s knowledge, Sasha had never been over to his place. But then again, he wouldn’t know, would he?</p><p>Sasha patiently repeated, “What did you show me when I went over to your flat last year? Because if you really are Martin, you’d know that.” </p><p>Okay, Martin couldn’t see any way out of this one, even though he’d hoped to break this particular truth more gently.</p><p>“Right, about that. So, in my memories you were taken over by an evil doppelganger and now I can’t remember you.”</p><p>Sasha actually opened her eyes and stared at him, mouth open. “Er, what?”</p><p>At that moment, the alarm Martin had set for the end of the meeting went off. </p><p>“Same time next week?” Martin offered apologetically. Sasha just glared at him, but she didn't argue the point.</p><p>"And, of course, I won't remember any of this happened?" she asked, making use of air quotes. </p><p>"Er, yeah. Thanks," he replied.</p><p>That could have gone better. They hadn't gotten to half of the important stuff. It could have gone a whole lot worse too.</p><p> </p><p>* </p><p>They didn’t make it a week, though. A few days later, as Sasha was gathering her things to leave for the night, she told Martin, “I need you to come with me tonight.” </p><p>He looked at her in confusion. </p><p>“You see, someone recently told me off for confronting spooky monsters late at night on my own.” She smirked slightly. </p><p>“I’m not a spooky monster!” he replied indignantly, looking around to see if anyone else was nearby. "And you can't..."</p><p>"Don't worry about that. A distraction is already set up," she replied.</p><p>"Er, okay. What's going on?"</p><p>“Just get your things, okay. I’ll explain on the way, and maybe we can even continue our conversation from earlier. First of all, do you know anyone or anything called Michael?”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>